First Complete adds serious illness specialist to panel

First Complete, part of the LSL group, has added PruProtect to its protection panel.

This brings the total number of life companies on the panel to six, joining Ageas, Aviva, Bright Grey, Friends Life and Legal & General.

PruProtect has a growing portfolio of protection products including a flagship serious illness plan, which covers 161 conditions compared to the market average of 35 critical illness conditions.

Jon Round, chief executive of First Complete, said: “We look to continually improve our panels and what they offer to our members.

“Protection is at the heart of the proposition provided by First Complete, so adding PruProtect to our protection panel helps us to increase both quality and choice for our members and for their clients.”

Page Source : http://www.introducertoday.co.uk/news_features/first-complete-adds-serious-illness-specialist-to-panel

Yorkshire BS gets set for expansion

A dozen new branches are to be opened by Yorkshire Building Society over the next two years, and will also grow its agency network.

Chris Pilling, chief executive, said: “Our branch and agency network is at the heart of Yorkshire Building Society and I’m delighted that we are able to announce this expansion when other financial institutions have been closing theirs.

“We are committed to retaining a strong presence on our high streets, providing our customers with access to a wide range of good-value financial service products backed up with the exceptional personal service they value.

“Our recent merger activity highlighted the value we place on our branch network, with all the branches we acquired remaining open, even in the small number of locations where there has been an overlap with another Yorkshire branch.

“These mergers have seen the Society grow its branch network by 65% from 135 to 224 in three years.”

News Source: http://www.introducertoday.co.uk/news_features/yorkshire-bs-gets-set-for-expansion

RBS's 'last bank in town' ads banned from TV

Two ‘last bank in town’ TV adverts for NatWest and the Royal Bank of Scotland have been banned by the advertising watchdog.

The ads attracted two complaints which said there was at least one place, Farsley in Yorkshire, where NatWest had closed its branch despite being the last bank in town.

RBS agreed this was so, as usage of the Farsley branch had fallen, but said that the ad stated that their commitment was to continue providing ‘banking services’ wherever they were the last bank in town. The ad showed a mobile service.

The bank did not go as far as to say that they would commit to keeping all branches open. It said Farsley residents had access to another branch in Pudsey just 1.5 miles away.

But the ASA upheld the complaints, saying the ad would be interpreted by viewers to mean that NatWest would not close a branch where it was the last one in town. It felt that the ad implied that a branch was a bricks and mortar building, not a mobile service.

In a busy week for the ASA, it also upheld a complaint from someone who had received a text message from a claims management firm.

The message said: “Records passed to us show you are entitled to circa £3,250 in compensation from the mis-selling of PPI on your credit card & loan. Reply STOP or PPI for info.”

The complainant had never taken out PPI, and challenged as to how the firm, DARH Ltd, could substantiate its claim as to having had records passed to it.

DARH did not respond to the ASA, which upheld the complaint. The ASA also noted that the text message did not contain information about the identity of the marketer and that it was in breach.

News Source: http://www.introducertoday.co.uk/

New powers for Bank of England to set LTVs

Chancellor George Osborne is set to hand new powers to the Bank of England to regulate the mortgage market by allowing it to set loan-to-value ratio limits.

The new powers would be aimed at controlling busts and booms, by banning unsustainable mortgages and preventing another housing bubble, or stimulating more lending.

The Financial Policy Committee (FPC) at the Bank will be able to set LTV limits – for example, setting them at 75% if it feared a credit bubble, or at 95% if it wanted to encourage more lending.

Osborne told MPs in a debate on the Finance Bill that the new committee, which has already been set up but does not come into legal force until next January, is to be led by the Governor of the Bank of England.

He said: “Its job is not just to try to moderate a credit boom but to try to alleviate a credit bust.”

The committee’s job will be to prevent lenders repeating the scenario of the pre-2008 credit crunch. Then it was commonplace to offer mortgages with 125% LTVs in the belief that property prices would continue rising, along with people’s ability to repay their loans.

Osborne said that the previous light-touch regulation had been an ‘unmitigated disaster’ for the economy. He said the FCP would be ‘entrusted with the stability for the whole financial system’.

Osborne said: “In many senses, this is the bread and butter of people’s daily lives, and it is very important that we understand that, as we create these instruments of policy that don’t currently exist.”

He said of the Bank’s new powers that it did not have to use them, adding: “I should say that these are just possibilities – they are potential tools that the committee might want to use.”

News source: http://www.introducertoday.co.uk/