MSE News: Renewed calls for simple financial products 2 August 2012 at 9:03AM in Savings & investments 25 replies 2.9K views

Former_MSE_Guy

"A range of simplified products should be introduced to restore consumer trust, a Treasury-commissioned review says ..."

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Renewed calls for simple financial products

zerog

A "simple" savings account will pay interest of 0.05%. For anything else, read the small print.

talexuser

Hey, great idea! We could have say local type mutual societies that take in money from local people and lend it out to other local people to buy their homes - call them Building Societies.... oh! seems familiar somehow.

With the financial system effectively bust from too much credit being created and 0.5% base rates, the return from these will surely be rubbish? Last government tried very similar thing - ended in failure.


Another PR exercise while the can gets kicked further down the road - i.e. not reforming the banks in any significant way?

JuicyJesus

Jesus wept not this again.

Here's a radical idea: encourage people to read contracts they sign.

opinions4u

Simple accounts already exist. My main bank offer a basic current account. A branch based easy access savings account.

They also have a number of hybrids that give me better returns, usually in return for me using my accounts in a different way.

Calling for more "basic" accounts will simply erode competition and innovation and encourage a one size fits all approach to banking. That can only be a bad thing.

Politicians are stupid.

rogerblack

JuicyJesus wrote: »

Jesus wept not this again.

Here's a radical idea: encourage people to read contracts they sign.

Stupid people are people too.

http://blog.moneysavingexpert.com/2011/10/21/a-blog-in-support-of-stupid-peoples-rights-probably-the-most-important-blog-ive-ever-written/

I wholeheartedly agree with.

Pincher

Let's lease the throne of England to Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, etc.
In exchange, they have to provide basic services like free public toilets, free basic bank account etc.

Over a period of time, we can probably work out the cost of these "free services", and charge kingship rental by the day. I'm guessing £10 million pounds a day?

Reaper

This is the wrong solution to the problem of sneaky interest rate manipulations on savings accounts.

The right solution is simply to force banks to state the current interest rate + expiry date of any bonuses on both statements and the bank web site when you log into your account. Simple.

People will soon desert those accounts paying 0.1% when they realise that is all they are getting, and the constant degrading of old accounts will become pointless.

opinions4u

Reaper wrote: »

This is the wrong solution to the problem of sneaky interest rate manipulations on savings accounts.

The right solution is simply to force banks to state the current interest rate + expiry date of any bonuses on both statements and the bank web site when you log into your account. Simple.

Agreed. Rates are on most statements these days.

People will soon desert those accounts paying 0.1% when they realise that is all they are getting, and the constant degrading of old accounts will become pointless.

While this would happen more, it certainly wouldn't be a great deal more.

Like it or not, most people can't be bothered.

RenovationMan

I was missold a pencil today in WHSmiths, I went in for a pen and ended up with a pencil that looks like a pen, but it's not a pen . I didn't read the notice on the shelf but I shouldn't have to, a pencil should be made of wood and a pen made of plastic or metal. Shame on you WHSmiths for this outrageous treatment of a customer. Does anyone have a link to a standard form?

(((((HUGS))))) in advance. We need to all gang up on those dastardly stationers!

grey_gym_sock

the aim is to "restore consumer trust", not to prevent ppl being ripped off ... ok, that's very clear.

also, they are starting with products that are about as simple as financial products can be (if not as simple as pencils). how do they extend this? if a pension were made as simple as possible, it would still be pretty complicated. or to put it the other way round: if you can't understand a complicated saving account, how are you going to be able to understand a simple pension?

i'm not being very constructive here ... i suppose i think that all products should be obliged to meet standards, rather than having an option of "simple" products which might be simple but poor value. most obviously, that means regulating the quality and quantity of information given about products. but it could also involve banning (for instance) excessive complexity.