Lloyds TSB Page 1

Mortgage deals from Lloyds TSB bank

Lloyds Fail With PPI Claims.

Payment Protection Insurance (PPI) policies were meant to protect borrowers against sickness or redundancy but were often sold to customers who did not want or need them.

The scale of Payment Protection Insurance (PPI) mis-selling is now of pandemic proportions. Read more

Lloyds New Pledge to Help First Time Buyers.

Lloyds New Pledge to Help First Time Time Buyers.

In recent weeks mortgage providers have released new products on to the market and they have also slashed rates for those with smaller deposits.

It therefore seems then that first time buyers are now been given a much needed boost. Especially as recently one of Britain’s biggest mortgage lenders, Lloyds banking group, has pledged to lend first time buyers £6.5 billion by the end of 2013 in order to help them get on to the property ladder. Read more

‘Newbuy’ Applications from the Halifax Hit a High!

The ‘NewBuy’ scheme allows potential buyers to buy a home with a lower deposit than they would normally need. Meaning that they may be able to buy sooner than they thought, without having to save for a long time to build up the deposit that some lenders would otherwise expect. Deposits especially for first time buyers can be as much as 25 per cent.

Initially when the NewBuy scheme was set the government pledged that it would provide some 100,000 new homes. However, in October the Home Buliders Federation (HBF) admitted that only a quarter of this amount will be provided. Read more

Halifax Offer £500 Incentive to new Mortgage Customers

Halifax offer £500 incentive to new mortgage customers.

In light of the current ‘mortgage war’ and today’s financial climate many of the nation’s biggest lenders have begun to offer different incentives in order to lure new customers to their products. It seems that Halifax Intermediaries are no exception.

They are offering borrowers who take out selected NewBuy, new build and shared equity products through them £500 towards the cost of moving home between August 31^st and October 22^nd this year. Read more

Young Home Owners in 2012

With the Bank of England’s base rate at an historical low of 0.5% for the last 3 years many young home owners it seem have taken advantage of this.

A study from the Halifax recently found that in January 2012 mortgage payments had reached there most affordable level in 14 years. Read more

House Price Index Part Two

As discussed in part one house price surveys take data from different times in the house buying process and have different parameters, therefore house prices rise and fall often in the same month, but this depends on which property you read.

Many experts feel that the best index is the one that has the biggest sample size. Read more

The Co-operative Bank to Buy out Lloyds Branches

It seems that the Co-operative bank is to purchase 632 Lloyds branches, with a bid thought to be worth around £1 million.

Lloyds TSB, the state rescued bank which is 41% owned by the government, is being forced to sell some of its branches under European Union competition rules. These rules ensure that competition with in the EU is not restricted or distorted. Read more

Halifax and Experian to Help First Time Buyers

The National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA) have stated that just 16% of total sales in October 2011 were to first time buyers, this figure is down from 22% in September 2011. This is the biggest drop since December 2008.

With rising rental costs, strict lending criteria and high deposit demands it is nearly impossible for the average first time buyer to enter the housing market. Read more

The Halifax £500 Million Payout

Lloyds banking group has set aside £500 million to voluntarily redress an estimated 300,000 Halifax customers who were potentially confused by its standard variable rate (SVR) cap. Read more

Lloyds Cutting Deep

The Lloyds TSB Banking Group are cutting yet more jobs. In early August the Group decided to axe 40 staff in their Wales region.

Earlier this year, the Lloyds banking group removed 15,000 jobs from their balance sheet and Mr Horta-Osorio said that he wants Lloyds to be the best bank for the customers. So to continue in the vein that they have been following for the last few years, they are set to remove a further 15,000 jobs from the group, accounting for about 14 per cent of the work force. Mr Horta-Osorio is widely known and has commented that he intents to see out the strategic vision he has for the group.

One of the aims is to reduce the groups over all visibility on in the international community and focus more on the UK. The group also aims to meet its £1.5 billion annual savings by 2014. This, it would seem, is being done through cutting staff and making the organisation a little leaner and retracting from areas that don’t make major profits.

So far, since the Lloyds merger with HBOS, the Lloyds group has removed over 27,500 jobs from their organisation but comments internally are resolute about not closing any branches. All the cuts seem to be in their back office functions and in middle management. Insiders have commented that among these changes will be “better end-to-end processes and IT platforms, a de-layered management structure and simpler legal structure, [and] centralised support functions”.

The market took the job cuts quite well as the Lloyds group closed up 9.7 per cent on the Stock Exchange in London, the biggest rise for the day on the top 100 companies index.

The BBC’s Robert Paterson said that “Never have so many jobs been shed by a single bank in British history” going on to say “He wants to do as much of [the job cuts] through redeployment and natural attrition as redundancies, but there are bound to be redundancies,” “They want to bring top management closer to branch management – so there’s a whole swathe of managers for whom that is incredibly bad news.”

The cost cutting exercise within the group will cost about £2.3 billion but will free up about £2 billion for investment in 2011 – 2014 in an effort to “revitalise Halifax” and the other business under the Lloyds group banner.

“Our aim is to become the best bank for customers,” said Mr Horta-Osorio.

“We will unlock the potential in this franchise over time by creating a simpler, more agile and responsive organisation, and by making substantial investments in better-value products and services for our customers.”

Unite, the largest union in the country, said that this news would cause “deep distress and anxiety”. Going further to say that “This review is merely another box-ticking exercise to give this bank – which has already, since its creation two years ago, cut over 27,000 staff – an excuse to sack more employees.”

HSBC is also cutting 700 jobs in its UK retail banking arm but then again, HSBC isn’t owned by the UK tax payers.