Worldwide Financial Planning

Consumer businesses with strong brands are continuing to benefit from the ability to pass on rising costs to their customers. Despite rising wages and input costs, companies including Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Procter & Gamble, Unilever and Nestle all declared higher profits in the first quarter as they passed on above inflation increases to consumers.

If a customer took out a standard variable rate, for 25 years, for example, the best rate with an independent broker could save you £160,800 over that term, versus a typical high street lender.

Inflation running in double digits since September is very bad news, and when you add a strong employment market and private sector wages rising at more than 6% a year it is easy to see why markets are predicting further interest rate rises. Gilt yields extended their recent rise as investors now see rates increasing to 5% this year. But there are already strong signs that the UK’s economy is slowing down.

When you use a high street lender, you miss out on thousands of available rates, flexibilities and competitive fees available to a mortgage broker, that are just not available as you pop into the local bank.

The chancellor has given an indication that the UK could be voting in a general election this time next year. In an interview at the International Monetary Fund conference in Washington, Jeremy Hunt said the government would call an election when the economy was starting to improve.

Bank safety is vitally important to an economy, in that confidence in deposits provides our floor, both politically and economically. The issues in SVB and Credit Suisse were specific to them, not to the UK banking sector. But are there any risks there to you and your savings? Here's this week's column.