Well, it’s that time of year again. Yes, despite there being at least another two months left to go until Christmas, the TV festive advertisements have begun in earnest. And there’s nothing we can do about it! Often with the contrived voiceover of a Z-list celebrity, these adverts attempt to persuade millions of us to…

Insurance fraud in the UK is on the increase. The Association of British Insurers (ABI) has revealed that in 2011 insurers exposed 139,000 fraudulent insurance claims – at a value of almost £1 billion. That’s a 5% rise in dodgy claims compared to 2010. The ABI also released some of its more ridiculous claims stories,…

As the Libor rate rigging scandal unfolds, what’s clear is that it has taken a crisis of this magnitude for many to understand and appreciate the significance of this global benchmark. But what is Libor? Financial institutions across the world use Libor when transacting with each other – Reuters estimates that £230 trillion worth of…

Is it me but doesn’t it seem like we’ve been here before? The Greek crisis seems to have been dragging on longer than the Trojan War. It has been vacillating from spikes of on-the-brink debt refinancing, to periods where it has been seemingly out of the news altogether. But this time things appear different, more…

The sad fact is that with the country needing every penny to pay down debt, and with a housing market that’s far from making a full recovery, stamp duty reform just isn’t going to happen. Stamp duty land tax is the tax you pay when you buy a new property. It’s charged as a percentage…