Posts Tagged ‘Barclays’
Car insurance costs fall
The cost of car insurance is starting to fall according to the AA’s British Insurance Premium Index.
The average ‘shoparound’ quote for comprehensive car insurance fell by 1.1 per cent to £1,132 by the end of March.
The Shoparound premium is an average of the five cheapest premiums quoted by around 50 insurance providers.
Over the year to March 2012 the Shoparound index increased by 7.7 per cent, representing the smallest annual increase for four years.
Last year the annual increase was a hefty 40.1 per cent.
However the AA expressed concern that the fall in insurance prices will not be sustained.
Simon Douglas, director of AA Insurance, said: “My fear is that if prices do continue to drop, we’ll see a repeat of 2009, when industry losses led to premiums suddenly rocketing up following a long period of little movement.”
The AA’s figures suggest that insurance providers are making early preparations for a change in the law that will make it illegal to use gender as a criterion for assessing risk.
The index showed a 4.8 per cent increase in the cost of policies for young female drivers, while premiums for male drivers under the age of 23 fell by around 1 per cent.
The European Court of Justice ruling on gender comes into effect in December.
In other insurance news, new research by Barclays suggests that 60 per cent of adults in the UK have not taken out life insurance.
With pressure increasing on household incomes and high unemployment it seems that life insurance is one area in which people are cutting back.
Britain is estimated to be facing a protection gap in the UK insurance market of £2.4 trillion.
Kieran Murphy, MD, Barclays Insurance said: “Life insurance and knowing your family are protected is really valuable and obtaining the right level of cover needn’t be too costly.
“We know that household budgets are really tight at the moment, but it’s important that protection needs don’t slip down the list of priorities.”
O2 launches mobile wallet app
Mobile operator O2 has become the latest entrant in the mobile payments market with the launch of a new app.
The O2 Wallet app, which allows users to transfer up to £500 via text message, follows the launch of a similar service, Pingit, by Barclays.
Barclays’ free ‘Pingit’ app allows the bank’s UK current account holders to send money from their phone by simply entering the recipient’s mobile phone number.
O2 Wallet will allow users on any network to transfer money by text message and to shop online using any UK bank card.
In addition it offers features such as a money management facility, and a search facility which allows the price of goods to be compared.
It also allows users to digitise their debit and credit cards in order to speed up online transactions.
O2 Wallet is available on IOS, Android and Blackberry devices, but the app does not support Windows phones.
Initially O2 will allow app users to transfer money via text for free, but there are plans to eventually introduce a 15p charge per text message.
Retails who have signed up to accept payments from the service include Debenhams, Comet, Sainsbury’s Direct and Tesco Direct.
Plans for O2 Wallet to offer a contactless payments service have been postponed until more retailers have installed the necessary terminals.
James Le Brocq, managing director at O2 Money said: “We believe it will transform the way people manage their finances and spend money.”
O2 has been working with Vodafone and EverythingEverywhere to provide a national mobile payments service in time for the 2012 Olympics but the project has been delayed by a European anti-competitive investigation.
A recent YouGov consumer survey commissioned by Intelligent Environments found that 29 per cent of British mobile owners would use their phone in preference to cash or cards, to make payments of less than £20.
Among the 18-24 age group this number rose to 41 per cent.
Barclays Pingit extended to all banks
Barclays’ recently-launched Pingit app can now be used by customers of all UK banks and building societies.
The app, which allows users to send and receive up to £300 between bank accounts, simply by entering the recipent’s phone number, has been available since February, but only to Barclays account holders.
It reduces the need for people to share their personal bank details and it has proved popular since its launch, with 400,000 copies being downloaded in just eight weeks.
Antony Jenkins, chief executive of Retail and Business Banking at Barclays said, “Barclays Pingit is potentially a revolution in banking but this is just the beginning.
“We are listening to customer feedback and monitoring the demand for additional functionality so there’s a lot more to come over the next few months.”
Pingit is compatible with IOS, Android and Blackberry smartphones, but not with Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform.
Meanwhile the Telegraph has reported a further development in the mobile banking sphere.
A contactless payment system from Orange called Quick Tap is being rolled out to Android phone and to users of all UK credit and debit cards.
Quick Tap was launched in May last year with Barclaycard, on the Samsung Tocco and Samsung Wave 578.
Like Barclays’ PingIt service, Quick Tap links a user’s handset to an account, allowing them to pre-load up to £150 and pay for goods simply by waving the phone across a designated reader.
The readers are already available in fast food outlets such as Subway, McDonalds and Pret a Manger, and other retailers are quickly coming on board including major supermarkets.
Quick Tap can only be used on phones equipped with near-field communications (NFC) technology and an announcement from Orange is expected shortly on which Android handsets will be compatible.
The system currently allows transactions of up to £15 in value, but this will be increased to £20 in June.
Immigrants Buying Their Way Into The U.S. Are Helping To Pay For The Nets New Arena
Foreign citizens with a spare $500,000, can buy their way to a green card if they invest in a government program called EB-5 that is designed to create American jobs. And in one case, that money is being used to help build the New Jersey Nets new arena in Brooklyn.
According to Bloomberg.com, foreigners can secure a green card for themselves and their family if the can “show they’ll spur 10 jobs for every $500,000 in a rural or high-unemployment area, and for every $1 million elsewhere.”
The Barclays Center in Brooklyn is expected to have a total price tag of $4.9 billion including surrounding development and infrastructure improvements, and $228 million (4.7%) is coming from the EB-5 project.
And now, folks in Florida, are hoping the same project can help fund a new stadium for the Tampa Bay Rays. According to the Tampa Tribune, the local Chamber of Commerce has been accepted into the program. Now they just need to find foreign investors willing to invest.
While the project is 22 years old, it has only recently seen a surge in investors. The program is set to expire later this year, but the president is hoping the program will be “radically” expanded.
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Bill Gross Is Doing So Well Right Now, He Wants To Jump Up And Down In Ecstasy
The last few quarters have not been kind to bond King, Bill Gross and his fund PIMCO.
For example, the PIMCO Total Return Fund, the largest bond fund in the world, was up 3.48% in November of 2011. That sounds okay, until you think about the fact that other funds were up an average of 5.48%.
But it looks like 2012 is the year for the King is getting back in the swing of things. WSJ reports that up to March, PIMCO has seen a 2.88% return. To put that in perspective, PIMCO beat the Barclays Capital Aggregate Bond Index by 2.58 percentage points and now sits in the top 11% of all bond mutual funds.
From the WSJ:
“It is a quarter beyond expectations,” said Mr. Gross, Pimco founder and co-chief investment officer. “If we could do it for three more quarters, I would jump up and down in ecstasy.”
We’d definitely like to see the normally super composed Gross jump up and down.
Click here to learn more about the quirks that make Gross so special>
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