Be cautious with the new one-year bond from the mutual society Re-Give. Will it really pay five per cent interest?
An unregulated organisation is promising savers a market leading interest rate of five per cent on money invested in social enterprises, which would leave savers unprotected by UK regulators should the organisation collapse.
The company which gives a terraced house in Chelmsford as its registered address says it operates under the tagline ‘Re-Give – FSA Registered Mutual Society.’ Although it features the FSA and HMRC logos on its homepage, it is only registered with the FSA; it’s not authorised by it.
Its approval from HMRC relates to the Enterprise Investment Scheme – a tax-relief scheme to help small, high-risk companies raise finance.
Anyone choosing to open this bond would not be able to seek redress from the Financial Ombudsman Service or the Financial Services Compensation Scheme if you had a complaint or if it went under and took your money with it.
Despite this fact, Re-Give tells customers via its website that it can ‘feel secure’ and ‘save with confidence’ knowing that all savings bonds are protected.
A spokesman for the FSA said the regulator was aware of the company.
• Boring banks are back
Co-op bosses announced its deal to buy 632 bank branches from Lloyds last week hailing it as an opportunity to make banking boring again.
Once approved by the regulator, Co-op would have a seven per cent share of the current-account market, treble its branches to almost 1,000 – or ten per cent of the market.
Almost five million people are expected to transfer to the Co-op in a £750million agreement. Chief executive Peter Marks said: “We are an old-fashioned bank, we are boring. We are not into the risky, gambling side of banking.
All 164 Cheltenham & Gloucester branches will be included in the sale.
The rest will be Lloyds TSB branches – 185 in Scotland and 283 in England and Wales.
The sale was forced on Lloyds after it was bailed out by taxpayers.
The deal could be approved by the Financial Services Authority this year.
• After weeks of falling fuel prices, they’re on the up again
The AA reports that petrol now costs 132.18p a litre on average, with diesel at 137.26p
Motorists could have been paying even less for fuel at the start of the month, had a fall in the wholesale price of petrol been fully passed on to consumers.
Now, wholesale prices have gone up again.
AA president Edmund King said: “It was inevitable pump prices would eventually rise again but, as has been the case so many times in recent years, the questions remain: should it be happening now and what is driving them up?”