Posted by Hari on Thursday, April 23, 2015 with No comments | Labels: Roundup

UK supermarket “deals”
dupe shoppers out of hundreds of millions, says Which?
The consumer group Which? claims supermarkets are pushing
illusory savings and fooling shoppers into choosing products they might not
have bought if they knew the full facts. Examples raised by Which? include
Tesco flagging the “special value” of a sweetcorn sixpack when a smaller pack
was proportionately cheaper, and Asda raising the individual price of a product
in order to make the multi-buy deal more attractive. The cumulative impact of
all these different pricing tactics is that it is impossible for people to know
if they are getting a fair deal, the consumer group says, particularly when
prices vary frequently, consumers are in a hurry or are buying numerous low
value items. About 40% of groceries in Britain are currently sold on promotion,
according to the retail analysts Kantar Worldpanel. With £115bn spent on
groceries and toiletries in 2013, Which? said consumers could be collectively
losing out to the tune of hundreds of millions of pounds. This is the first
ever super-complaint Which? has lodged against the grocery sector after
compiling a dossier of “dodgy multi-buys, shrinking products and baffling sales
offers” and sending it to the Competition and Markets Authority. Which? has
previously made super-complaints on care homes, credit card interest rates,
Northern Ireland banking, private dentistry and the Scottish legal profession. GUARDIAN
Jail: France convicts
Nina Ricci perfume heir of HSBC-assisted tax evasion
The heir to the Nina Ricci perfume dynasty has been
sentenced to three years in prison, two of them suspended, after being
convicted of hiding money from the French taxman with the help of HSBC. A Paris
court also fined Arlette Ricci €1m (£722,000) after declaring she had shown a
“particularly determined willingness for more than 20 years” to hide money left
to her by her father in Swiss bank accounts. “The seriousness of the facts are
an exceptional threat to public order and the republican pact,” read the
judgment, seen as an important precedent for as many as 50 other cases of
alleged tax fraud involving HSBC in France. Judges also ordered the seizure of
a house in Paris and a property in Corsica with a total estimated value of €4m,
that it said had been transferred to family trusts in an alleged attempt by
Ricci to “organise her own insolvability” and escape financial penalties. Ricci,
74, is the first of around 50 wealthy French nationals being pursued in the
courts for allegedly placing money in Switzerland to avoid taxes. During the
high-profile trial, she was accused of hiding €18m from the French taxman. She
had fiercely denied the accusations, insisting the measures taken to optimise
her tax bill were legal. Ricci’s tax adviser Henri-Nicolas Fleurance was given
a one-year suspended prison sentence and a €10,000 fine for attempting to
organise her insolvency, and Ricci’s daughter an eight-month suspended sentence
for fiscal fraud. The Geneva-based branch of HSBC is accused of having hidden
around €5bn for nearly 9,000 wealthy French customers. As well as French
investigations, the Swiss branch of HSBC is facing charges of fraud and money
laundering in Belgium after the Brussels authorities claimed it had “knowingly
eased and promoted fiscal fraud by making offshore companies available to
certain privileged clients”. GUARDIAN
Survey: inheritance
and gifts the only way for 50% of young people to get on the property ladder
Nearly half parents, or 49 per cent, think their children
will be able to buy their first home only after receiving an inheritance, a
survey of more than 1,000 parents suggest. Highlighting the generation gap when
it comes to home-owning aspirations, nearly a third of 25-to-34 year olds
surveyed had used cash gifts for a deposit. One-in-six aged between 25 and 34
relied on inheritance from a relative to buy their own house, compared to just
one-in-20 people aged over 55, housing charity Shelter said. The asking price
for the average UK house is currently a record £286,133, beating a peak reached
last June. This rises to £594,585 in London – a 49 per cent increase compared
to five years ago, property website Rightmove said, blaming a shortage of
housing and growing demand for the increases. In England, the proportion of
young people aged 25 to 34 who are privately renting has more than doubled
since 2003/04 to 48 per cent. Over the same 10 years, owner-occupation levels
in this age group have fallen from 59 per cent to 36 per cent, according to the
English Housing Survey. Shelter said: ‘Rather than pumping more money into
schemes like Help to Buy, which just push prices up, politicians should instead
give back hope to the priced out generation by making a real and lasting
commitment to building the affordable homes we desperately need.’ DAILY MAIL
Payday regulation crackdown pushes
Wonga into its first annual loss ever
The reversal of fortunes for the UK’s biggest payday lender
— after years of profits — reflects the costs of a large-scale clean-up
prompted by a dramatic tightening of regulation. Wonga, which reported a loss
after tax of £42.8m for 2014, does not expect to be profitable again this year.
The Financial Conduct Authority expects all but a handful of Britain’s 400
payday lenders to be wiped out by a cap on the total amount they can charge,
which came into force at the start of the year. For Wonga, the cap has already
pushed margins down by two-thirds on a per customer basis. Its customer base of
one million has fallen to under 600,000. Wonga has drawn fierce criticism from
politicians, consumer groups and debt charities for charging high interest
rates and hefty charges to struggling borrowers. Andy Haste, executive
chairman, said he was introducing sweeping changes that he warned would
substantially dent the group’s profitability in the short term. He has not
ruled out dropping the Wonga brand altogether, although said he would not
rebrand in the immediate future. FINANCIAL TIMES
Stiffer regulation
means HSBC could move headquarters away from UK, hints bank's chairman
The bank – along with others based in the UK – is being
required to ringfence its high street business from its investment banking
operations to comply with the reforms set out by Sir John Vickers in his review
of banking. The bank is relocating 1,000 staff to Birmingham where it intends
to put the headquarters of its ringfenced operation. The bank’s shareholders
are also said to be questioning its London headquarters in Canary Wharf because
of George Osborne’s bank levy, which cost HSBC £750m last year. The
chancellor’s levy is calculated on the size of a bank’s balance sheet. To
comply with global rules, banks such as HSBC are also being required to hold
more capital. Standard Chartered, another bank headquartered in London but with
much of its activities outside the UK, is also facing questions from
shareholders. GUARDIAN
Worst year in Tesco’s
history puts staff pensions under threat
Tesco staff are being sent details of a plan to replace its
"generous" pension scheme, following other big names which have cut
back on the employer benefit. The plan comes after the retailer announced the
worst results in its history - a statutory pre-tax annual loss of £6.4bn. Tesco
wants to close its defined benefit pension scheme - which guarantees a pension
based on earnings and length of service - to new members and for existing
members' future accrual. This means that, should the change happen, all
entitlements to date would be preserved, but staff would then move to a defined
contribution scheme. These schemes are generally less generous and the size of
the pension pot depends on the success of the investments the money is put
into. Hardly any defined benefit schemes are available to new staff joining the
biggest companies in the UK, unlike the public sector. More than 80% of large
employers offered a defined benefit scheme for new hires 15 years ago, a report
by pension consultants Towers Watson found. Now, 97% of the FTSE 350 companies
surveyed only offer a defined contribution scheme to new staff members. BBC NEWS
98% of cars don’t
match or beat their miles per gallon (mpg) claims
Consumers are being misinformed about their cars’ fuel
consumption in advertising and at point of sale, which means they’re likely to
end up spending more on fuel. The official test used by carmakers is outdated
and contains a number of loopholes that lead to unrealistic figures.
Manufacturers are allowed to reduce results by 4% at the end of the test, can
opt to only test in a car’s ‘eco’ mode, turn off lights and air-con, and
increase tyre pressures above the recommended levels to reduce rolling
resistance. It also doesn’t accurately reflect real-life scenarios, such as
motorway driving. The consumer organisation Which? tested 200 new cars across
2013 and 2014 and found that all but three of them fell short of their official
mpg figures by 13% on average, resulting in drivers spending £133 more a year
on fuel. The car that performed worst compared to its official mpg figure was
the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV (a plug-in hybrid), which overstated its mpg by a
staggering 120%, costing £459 a year in unexpected fuel costs. But the car that
hit its owners’ pockets the hardest was the Jeep Grand Cherokee - based on
Which? tests, drivers will shell out up to £854 a year more on fuel. Other cars
that will cost owners a lot more to fuel are the BMW 4 Series Gran Coupé
(£421), BMW X4 (£419) and Volvo V60 Plug-In Hybrid (£352). An improved test,
which closely mirrors the one used by Which?, is due to be introduced from 2017,
but the European Commission is facing heavy pressure from the car industry to
delay this change until 2020 and any further delay will only end up costing
consumers. WHICH?
Fifteen million
credit card holders have their limit increased without asking
The findings comes as a series of studies and economic
surveys suggest that households are taking on increasing levels of debt, which
may become unsustainable as interest rates eventually start to rise. Limits
were increased by an average of £750, although more than a third said their
limits had gone up by over £1,000. As many as 41 per cent of credit card
holders – the equivalent of 15 million people – have seen their credit limit
increased in the past year, even though they have not requested a rise. But
while some borrowers who are confident at their ability to repay may be
grateful for an increase, 19 per cent of those questioned said they felt
nervous they would spend the money and not afford to repay. Anyone who has
their credit limit increased against their wishes can phone up their credit
card provider to ask for it to be reduced again. A quarter of those given
higher limits have contacted their lender to reject it, the poll found. Already
some households are depending on credit for essential items, particularly 35 to
44 year-olds, with close to 20 per cent borrowing simply to make ends meet. If
household debt continues to grow at its current level it could hit £10,000 per
household by the end of next year - an unprecedented level of borrowing. DAILY MAIL
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