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Who owns my bank?

jim — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 18:53:05 +0000

With the recent banks-go-bust fiasco in the UK there is a lot of worry amongst consumers about whether their money is safe. The £50,000 limit on your money being safe is not quite as straight forward as it first seems, as some banks are banded together, meaning that if you have over £50,000 within the linked banks then you are not safe.

This brings about the question, who owns my bank? Moneysupermarket have recently done some investigation and produced a table of which banks are linked to which others. Click here to take a look.

Some of them are obvious, such as First Direct and HSBC, but a lot of them are not, and an awful lot of people will now be in a position where they think they are safe from losing their money (should the worst happen) when in fact they need to be re-investing their money elsewhere.

There are other factors to consider, such as the timescale before you can get your money if the bank goes bust and you need to wait for compensation. This is covered in detail in the article above.

If you have in excess of £50,000 in the banking system, now is the time to double check it is safe!

Virgin Credit card – New 16 month 0% offer

jim — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 10:07:30 +0000

Virgin Money have updated their product offering on the Virgin Credit Card. As of 12pm today, Wednesday 8^th October, the Virgin Credit Card will offer card holders the following rates and benefits.

- 0% for 16 months on balance transfers (from the date your account is opened. Transfers to be made within first 60 days. 2.98% handling fee applies)

- 0% for 6 months Now 0% for 3 months on card purchases* (from the date your account is opened)

- Discounts at loads of Virgin companies

- Discounted vouchers for leading high street stores

- Typical rate 16.6% APR (variable)

NOTE from Lowestcostcreditcard: Don’t forget, if you take this deal for the 0% interest free, DO NOT BUY THINGS WITH THIS CARD (click for details)

Prediction – balance transfer rates on the way down

jim — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 14:00:03 +0000

There are an awful lot of 0% offers out there now, and the interest free duration has been extending further and further. It is now possible to get 0% on balance transfers for 15 months. With these sort of offers on the table the credit card companies will be keen to differentiate themselves from the competition. Hopefully this will mean lower balance transfer rates.

Over the past couple of years we have seen the rates creep up gradually to what is pretty much an all time high. The average balance transfer rate is 2.4%. Depending on how much you are transferring this may or may not be significant. In terms of whether it is worth transferring a balance or not there is still no question it is better to pay the fee than carry a balance on a high APR card, but it makes “low APR for the life of the balance” cards seem a genuine alternative, depending on how quickly you can clear the balance.

Despite the increase in charges for transferring balances the number of people transferring a balance has risen once again, and the average amount being transferred is approaching £2000. This is presumably down the the credit crunch, as well as people getting more and more savvy to the benefits of exploiting 0% credit card deals.

Site Launch

jim — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 09:59:19 +0000

Welcome to LowestCostCreditCard

Like the site tagline states, we keep an eye on the best credit card deals, so you don’t have to.

Subscribe to our RSS feed to keep informed of the best deals out there for your circumstances. There are so many deals out there it can be confusing. We aim to cut through the confusion and give you the best deals for:

0% balance tranfer credit cards
0% on purchases credit cards
Low percentage for the life of the balance credit cards