Would having early access to your pension pot encourage you to save more for your retirement? Is that, really, why we as a nation don’t save enough into our pensions? The Department for Work and Pensions estimates that seven million working age people are not putting enough aside for their retirement. It has been suggested [...]

On Monday the body charged with proposing measures to prevent future financial meltdowns – the Independent Commission on Banking (ICB) – released its hotly-anticipated interim report. It was perhaps with some irony that the ICB’s website suffered its own collapse – such was the online interest from surfers, all keen to read for themselves the [...]

Since last year’s emergency budget there has been somewhat of a chasm if you’ve wanted to put some tax-free cash aside for your child to access in young adulthood (you’ve still been able to pay into a pension for your child tax efficiently, but of course, under current rules, they can’t access this until they [...]

George Osborne’s announcement that he was cutting the price of fuel by a single penny was met with rapturous approval from the coalition Government during the Budget last Wednesday. Indeed, it provoked probably the third biggest reaction of the day, probably pipped by the guffaws that followed Mr Osborne’s assertion that ‘we’re all in this [...]

Do you ever wonder what the world will be like in 40 years’ time? What shape will the finance industry be in – will there be a need for bank or building society branches? Will we monitor our finances entirely by digital means? If so, what about money? Perhaps my grandchildren will one day decry [...]

There are many differences between men and women – always have been, always will be. I don’t intend to go into the specifics here. However, in the eyes of the European Court of Justice (ECJ), we are all one and the same. Upon reaching the conclusion that it is gender discrimination to charge men and [...]

The other day I was off work sick (with man flu in case you’re wondering). Whilst lying on the sofa, watching daytime TV and generally feeling sorry for myself, I stumbled upon a documentary about The Great War as I clamoured with the remote to avoid Loose Women. There was this old man on there, [...]

Odds are if one major political party says the sky is blue then the other will opine that, actually, it’s green. For a political system that has undoubtedly seen its major beasts moved from their historical positions at the right and left into the middle ground, there doesn’t half remain more bones of contention than [...]

The news that investors have been plunging into the stock market at the fastest rate for a decade really comes as little surprise. The latest figures from the Investment Management Association showed that net retail sales of equity funds in December reached levels not seen since April 2000. For 2010 as a whole, a net [...]

Charles Dickens began his novel, A Tale of Two Cities, with the words: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” Although a little out of context – Dickens was referring to the simultaneous excitement and horror of the unfolding French Revolution – it’s a quote I often come back to [...]