Some of Britain’s biggest banks are coming under pressure to sign up to a new voluntary scheme that offers protection to customers who fall victim to “authorised push payment” frauds. Eight lenders, including Barclays, Lloyds Banking Group and Royal Bank of Scotland, have signed up to the industry code, which came into force yesterday. But other banks including Co-op Bank, Tesco Bank and CYBG are yet to implement the scheme. Nicky Morgan, the Conservative MP and chairwoman of the Treasury committee, said: “It’s encouraging that some banks have signed up to the voluntary code… I would now encourage those who haven’t signed up to do so.” Gareth Shaw, of Which?, the consumer group, warned that “some banks are leaving their customers unprotected” by not signing up to the code. Elsewhere, the Mail reports that some banks are now forcing their online customers to tick a box that could later deny them a refund if they are defrauded. Lenders are demanding that customers confirm they are aware of the risks before they approve the payment – prompting fears that banks could use these agreements to avoid refunding victims.

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The number of landlords taking out buy to let mortgages has fallen by nearly 10% in a year. UK Finance has disclosed 5,000 loans were completed in March – up 200 from 4,800 in February but a 9.1% decline year-on-year. The February figure also reflected a 7.7% drop in new mortgage completions over 12 months.

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Sam Woods, the deputy governor of the Bank of England, has said that regulators are watching a mortgages price war “like a hawk” and may need to impose stricter minimum capital requirements on lenders. The price war over the past two years may be good news for first-time homebuyers, but it was less good for a bank or building society concentrated in mortgages, Mr Woods warned. The Bank has said “ring-fencing” rules designed to protect high street operations from risks taken in lenders’ investment banking had contributed to the increased competition. His comments come after the Bank forced Metro Bank to correct how much capital it was setting aside to cover mortgages after under-reporting the risk from its loan book.

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The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has received a total of 14,072 data breach notifications since the introduction of GDPR in May 2018, while complaints from the public have hit 41,000 – up from 21,000. No fines have yet been issued in the UK over the new data laws, with the ICO saying that while they are “coming soon”, it wanted organisations “to focus on how data protection law can help firms to get it right… rather than how they might be punished if they get it wrong”. Figures show that across all the EU countries which have implemented GDPR, there has been a total of 89,271 notifications of data breaches and 144,376 complaints from the public.

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The fifth annual intermediary mortgage survey from IRESS has revealed that APIs and digitisation are expected to transform the mortgage market, but intermediaries still want to see more real-time updates. The survey found that a third of lenders are in the process of implementing or are already accepting applications via APIs into their online intermediary platforms. Meanwhile, 96% of lenders also believe that Open Banking technology will improve the mortgage application process for customers over the next two years, up from six in ten lenders last year. Lenders believe that Open Banking technology will improve the process through the delivery of quicker, more accurate decisions, faster processing times and less requirement for documentation.

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The Bank of England has been warned against raising interest rates amid the Brexit uncertainty. The OECD predicted UK economic growth of just 1.2% this year and 1% next year.

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The average two-year fixed rate has continued to rise according to data collected by Moneyfacts, reaching 2.48% – up one basis point from last month. Moneyfacts says rates within the 60% LTV category and the 95% LTV category have both dropped, with the average in the former declining from 1.91% to 1.90%, and the latter from 3.25% to 3.24%.

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As growing numbers of workers join the gig economy, industry experts are calling on mortgage lenders to be more flexible towards people with unconventional working patterns. Paula Higgins, chief executive of the Homeowners’ Alliance, comments: “The mortgage industry and government need to wake up to the world in 2019 and do more to support the self-employed into home ownership.”

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Figures from UK Finance show that the number of people remortgaging their homes with additional borrowing spiked in March. The figures showed that in March there were 16,180 new remortgages with additional borrowing, a 9.1% increase year on year. The average amount taken out on top of the remortgage money was £55,700. UK Finance also revealed that new first-time buyer mortgages reached 28,800 in March, 2.4% fewer than in the same month a year earlier. Keith Haggart, managing director of mortgage provider Responsible Lending, said: “The jump in remortgaging chimes with a market that is languishing on low supply of homes for sale.”

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United Trust Bank’s (UTB) latest ‘Broker Sentiment Poll’ has revealed that 84% of brokers believe that advances in technology over the next five years are going to have a major impact on their businesses – with 59% seeing advances in AI and “robo-advice” technology as presenting the biggest digital threat, with open banking and crypto currencies in second and third places. Fifty-three per cent of respondents said they expect their businesses to invest up to £10,000 in new IT developments over the next 12 months. UTB group managing director Harley Kagan said: “It’s interesting to note that even in the emerging technologies where brokers saw the biggest threats, there were always some who saw them as great opportunities…This kind of automation could be beneficial to customers, brokers and lenders in terms of time and cost saving”.

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New research from UK Finance has revealed that the UK’s financial services industry lost almost £93m in 2018 as a result of invoice scams. Those most at risk are firms holding client money for property transactions or bond purchases.

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The number of complaints to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) about fraud and scams has surged to record highs, figures show. The 40% rise in grievances after people have been tricked out of their money has pushed the overall number of complaints to its highest level in five years. For the first time in ten years, PPI complaints made up less than half (46%) of new complaints received while complaints about fraud and scams increased by 43%. Authorised push payment (APP) fraud, where someone is tricked into transferring money directly to a fraudster, is one of the fastest-growing types of fraud, the ombudsman said.

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London has moved up to second in Schroders’ global ranking of cities with the most investment potential. The capital rose from third place in 2017 and eighth place in 2016 in the Schroders Global Cities 30 index, with only Los Angeles ahead of it. Paris in 17th place and Munich in 28th are the only other European cities to make the grade. Schroders said the ranking “reinforces London’s position as a significant contributor to the UK economy and highlights the UK capital’s attraction as a location for real asset investing”. However, figures from the Investment Association show retail investors pulled a total of £205m from UK investment funds in March amid Brexit uncertainty. And research by Morningstar shows that UK-domiciled investment funds lost £5bn in assets in March and £30bn in total over a 12-month period.

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The government lent a record £3.4bn to housebuyers using the Help to Buy scheme last year. HtB lending rose by more than £500m on the year with increases across all regions in England, and the average property bought using the scheme in 2018 cost £291,820, up from £280,679 in 2017. Just over 80% of households benefiting from HtB last year were first-time buyers, and the remainder were existing homeowners moving.

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The Bank of England’s quarterly survey shows lenders expect demand for mortgages to fall over the next three months amid continuing Brexit uncertainty. A net balance of 18.9% of respondents said that demand from homebuyers was likely to fall between April and June. This is the largest figure since the fourth quarter of 2010, when almost a third of lenders were preparing for a slowdown. The Bank’s survey also shows the number of people defaulting on their credit card debts rose sharply in the first three months of the year. The survey found the default rate had increased to 22.9% in the first quarter from 12.7% in the last quarter of 2018.

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The FCA is to investigate second charge and subprime lenders over business models that “drive unaffordable lending”. The regulator said it would ‘carry out diagnostic work’ to find out whether some lending sectors “rely on consumers who cannot afford to repay”. The FCA said it is “concerned” that some subprime credit and second charge mortgage products are designed to benefit from consumers struggling to repay in full and on time. “For example, firms may make profits from consumers who do not or cannot repay in full and on time. We will carry out work to identify these business models and the consequences for consumers and use our findings to identify what action we may need to take,” the FCA’s 2019/20 business plan stated. “We want to understand whether the causes and consequences of these business models exploit consumer biases and cause harm. This work will include consumer research to understand the consumer behaviours that drive demand-side pressures. We expect to complete this work in 2020/21.”

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The government has pledged to provide a further £200m of funding to the British Business Bank to ensure that fast-growing private businesses have access to capital after Brexit. The funding is intended to mitigate any damage caused by loss of access to the European Investment Fund. Robert Jenrick, exchequer secretary to the Treasury, said: “The UK is creating more start-ups and attracting more venture capital funding than any other European country, but we want to do more to ensure our small businesses and entrepreneurs can thrive.”

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Increasing numbers of UK SMEs are aware of alternative finance options, Growth Street has found. The peer-to-peer lender’s latest annual survey of 2,000 small firms found 66% of respondents had at least some knowledge of finance outside of banks, up from 54% in 2018. Some 34% of respondents said that they were not at all confident in their knowledge of non-bank funding, down from 45% last year. However, 37% of Midlands businesses said they have no confidence in their knowledge of finance sources outside the banks, just above the national average. When asked where they would go to seek alternative finance, 12% of Midlands SMEs said they would use an accountant and 17% didn’t know.

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The UK has suffered the most profit warnings since the financial crisis, according to analysis by EY, with the retail and travel sectors the hardest hit. The proportion of London-listed companies warning in the last 12 months was the highest for 10 years, with firms issuing 89 alerts in the first three months of 2019, a fifth higher than last year. “Protracted uncertainty is taking its toll”, said Alan Hudson, UK head of restructuring at EY.

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Last week, the NACFB made available a standardised Bridging Finance Enquiry Form, for use by brokers introducing short-term bridging loans to lenders. The form, available to download via the NACFB Compliance website, aims to increase the quality and consistency of client information a broker passes on to a lender. The launch of the Bridging Finance Enquiry form follows calls from brokers, lenders and suppliers to ensure that there is greater uniformity and depth of data from the outset. You can find out more – and download the new template document – here today .

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