Steady rise in mortgage approvals

The number of mortgages approved for house purchases by the major High Street banks has risen for the seventh month in a row, figures show.

The BBA reports figures for the major High Street banks

 

The British Bankers’ Association (BBA) said approvals in July stood at 38,181, a rise of 7.4% compared with June.

The data suggests that the rise in activity and house prices could stretch into the autumn.

However, the group warned that new lending was below seasonal expectations despite greater demand from borrowers.

sourced from The BBC

Filed under: banking sector, bbc, British Goverment, high street, homes, housing, news, recession, banking sector, banks, BBA, bbc, borrowers, britain, British Bankers' Association, business, capitalism, high street, mortgages, news, Steady rise in mortgage approvals

Massive fraud at building society

The Chelsea building society has revealed it has lost £41m as a result of mortgage frauds by some of its buy-to-let borrowers.

The frauds have left a huge dent in the society’s finances

 

The frauds are the main reason for the society staying in the red, with overall losses of £26m in the first half of the year.

Last year, the Chelsea lost £39m, the largest annual loss yet recorded by any building society.

Its finance director has now joined its chief executive in agreeing to resign.

“The society has been through a difficult period and reporting a loss in the first half of the year is disappointing,” said Stuart Bernau, the Chelsea’s chairman and interim chief executive.

“However, the underlying performance is strong, even though we have had to make provision for impairment and fraud losses.”

The Chelsea explained that the fraudulent loans it had discovered were mainly among buy-to-let loans made between 2006 and 2008.

Filed under: banking sector, bbc, British Goverment, news, recession, £39m, banking sector, banks, bbc, Billion $, bonuses, borrowers, britain, Building society, business, buy-to-let, capitalism, downturn, high street, mortgage, news, recession, UK, UK economy, years

Retail banking 'set for losses'

The retail arms of the UK’s High Street banks are likely to see losses in the second half of 2009, a survey suggests.

Retail banking is still struggling, despite big profits in investment banking

 

The KPMG UK Banks Performance Benchmarking Survey says that despite modest profits in the first half of the year, bad loans would lead to losses.

It says losses from bad loans will not peak “until 2010 or beyond.”

Three of the four major High Street banks reported profits in the first six months of the year, boosted by their investment banking operations.

“Retail banking is just profitable at lower levels, but with rising impairments. It seems probable that it will fall into loss making in the second half of the year,” says KPMG.

It adds that competition for savings accounts and the increased cost of lending between banks has impacted retail banking.

Looking ahead, KPMG says that continued uncertainty in the mortgage market will make life difficult for retail banks.

sourced from The BBC

Filed under: banking sector, bbc, down turn, economic depression, news, recession, banking sector, banks, bbc, business, capitalism, downturn, economy, high street, mortgage, news, recession, retail, retail arm, retail banking, sale, UK's high street banks, world, years

Retail sales 'continue to rise'

Retail sales rose again in July, as the wet weather lifted demand for furniture and homeware goods, the British Retail Consortium (BRC) has said.

The BRC said last month’s rain boosted furniture sales

 

UK-wide like-for-like sales – which pulls out the impact of new store openings – increased by 1.8% last month compared with July 2008.

This was a bigger increase than the 1.4% rise reported for June.

However, the BRC cautioned that rising unemployment was preventing a wider return of consumer confidence.

‘Home improvements’

Sales of furniture and homewares saw their biggest year-on-year growth in three years during July, although the BRC said this was against a very low base in July 2008, and lifted by extensive discounting.

Filed under: bbc, recession, sales soar, Stores, BRC, business, capitalism, carrier bags, consumer, continue to rise, high street, news, retail, shopping, shops, Stores

Obiturtary of the high street and other companies – UPDATED

Please follow the link to see updated list of high street and companies that have gone in administration since January 2008

Obituary of the high street and other companies

Filed under: economic depression, Great Depression, recession, Recession starts Friday 23rd January, Unemployment, Update, administration, business, closing down, companies, downturn, economy, high street, recession, shopping, shops, Stores, Unemployment, woolworth, world

Link to blog about recession

Please follow the link below to view a blog relating to the current economic situation

(redirected to a blogger blog)

 

Downturn and Recession

Filed under: blog, blogger, down turn, recession, blog, blogger, downturn, high street, news, recession

British jobs for British workers

Deal hope in foreign workers row

Workers say the action is not racist, but about discrimination against Britons

A possible deal to end the row over the use of foreign labour at Lincolnshire’s Lindsey Oil Refinery will be put to local union leaders and workers later.

The proposal emerged after talks chaired by Acas.

A GMB union source told the BBC the deal could see half of the disputed 200 jobs offered to British workers, but the Unite leader has denied this.

Hope that new ‘half-and-half’ deal in foreign workers row could end wildcat strikes

A proposed deal that could end the bitter row over foreign workers at an oil refinery will be put to unions today.

Marathon talks aimed at ending a series of wildcat strikes at Lindsey plant in Lincolnshire ended last night with the outline of a possible deal.

Union sources said it involved offering half the jobs of the disputed recruitment contract to UK workers.

Downturn will bring big fall in migrant workers, says CBI

Companies facing decline in demand for goods and services will reduce their use of agency staff, MPs are told

The use of migrant labour in Britain will decline abruptly as companies face a sharp fall in demand for their goods and services, the Confederation of British Industry told MPs yesterday. John Cridland, the CBI’s deputy director general, told the Commons home affairs committee that the first response of many firms to the downturn was to reduce their dependency on agency staff, many of whom are migrant workers.

He said that there was evidence that many nationals of new EU states were going home as unemployment rose in Britain and suggested that the flow of skilled migrants from outside Europe would also decline. He added: “I expect that, when we have the next report from the [Home Office’s] migration advisory committee on the needs for skilled labour, we will not see the same need for non-EU labour in the same numbers because of the need to provide as many employment opportunities as possible for the unemployed. All I’m suggesting is that the market will correct itself, but what we cannot avoid is a significant increase in unemployment, which is a sad but inevitable consequence of recession.”

read full articles Click here

Filed under: Changing recession, down turn, recession, Strikes, The Mirror, Unemployment, Wild cat strikes, articles, bbc, britain, British jobs, british workers, British workers for Brtish workers, capitalism, downturn, EU, high street, labour market, migrant workers, recession, Strikes, Unemployment, wildcat strikes, world

High street hit by Downturn

The economic downturn has seen high profile failures such as Woolworths, and High Streets across the country are worried about falling sales.

News video from the BBC

Founder on Lush talks about the downturn from the BBC

Founder of Lush Cosmetics Mark Constantine explains why British retail has taken a turn for the worse.

Filed under: bbc, down turn, high street, bbc, downturn, for sale, high street, Lush, recession, shopping, shops, Stores

Sales soar at Primark

Primark sales sour over the Christmas period. As the rest of the high street suffer Primark sales increase.

Article

Primark has enjoyed another successful Christmas, with sales soaring by more than a fifth as its cut-price chic continued to appeal to shoppers.

Parent company Associated British Foods said today that total sales at the fashion store rose by 21% in the final 16 weeks of last year.

The sharp rise was partly attributed to Primark opening six new stores during the year, but the group said like-for-like sales growth, which excludes new space, was “very strong” at around 4%.

Primark’s performance provides further evidence that shoppers are becoming increasingly thrifty as the recession hammers consumer confidence – a trend that sent clothing sales falling sharply at Marks & Spencer.

Primark fired several suppliers in 2008 following allegations that they were using child labour. But this week, allegations emerged that one of its UK suppliers was subjecting its workers to sweatshop conditions, with illegal immigrants receiving just half the minimum wage for 12-hour days, seven days a week.

read full article sourced from the Guardian

Filed under: bbc, down turn, high street, recession, sales soar, Stores, bbc, business, consumer, downturn, high street, Primark, recession, sales soar, Stores

Land of Leather latest UK retail collapse

LONDON — Sofa retailer Land of Leather filed for bankruptcy protection on Monday, becoming the latest British retailer to succumb to a downturn in consumer spending amid the global economic slowdown.

Land of Leather, which operates 109 retail stores across Britain and Ireland, entered the administration process _ where a company is run independently with the priority of returning funds to creditors _ after failing to raise working capital or find a buyer.

Lee Manning, one of the appointed administrators at Deloitte said that the company’s stores would continue to trade as normal “while the administrators continue to talk to interested parties with a view to concluding a sale of the business as a going concern.”

Land of Leather said it had found itself in challenging market conditions “for some time” as a result of the credit crunch and a lack of household spending on big ticket retail items. sourced from The Washington Post read more

My comment

This is the first of these kind of shops to go, I think we will be seeing a lot more interior / furniture / house hold accessories – Now we have all bought cushions, rugs, lampshades and kitchen’s, all these shops that have opened up on the strength of the ideal home / interior design period will all start suffering. Lets all start being individual, make cushions from old materials or clothes rather then buying new ones. Thing more creatively around our homes and their interiors.

Filed under: Changing recession, down turn, high street, recession, Stores, 1980s, business, capitalism, consumer, downturn, for sale, high street, recession, shops, Stores