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In the UK the Archbishop of the Church of England has struck out at pay day lenders calling them “morally wrong”. Unfortunately after bashing the pay day loan industry it transpired that the Church had invested over $7 billion of its pension funds in a company which had then supported a pay day lender. Indirectly therefore the Church had invested in a pay day lender! The very industry it regarded as sinful. It seems they were suitably embarrassed.

In response to the Archbishop’s attack the pay day lender in question, Wonga, who is also a pay day loan provider in Canada (see www.Wonga.ca), created and released a very clever, tongue in cheek, advertisement based on the 10 commandments – the Wonga version is the 10 commitments. The aim of the advert is to better educate people when interpreting the Church’s comments about pay day lenders. It sets out the promises the company makes to its borrowers and highlights the fact Wonga is a responsible lender. Probably the Church is a little unhappy that the debate and the new advertising campaign has certainly given the lender even more publicity – the adverts have of course been reported upon by the media thus resulting in free advertising and increased publicity for the company.

Further, far from sounding like the loan shark the Church has tried to portray pay day lenders as, the Wonga advert pretty much agrees with what the Church has had to say on the issue of pay day lending. The lender stated it was transparent about the price of its loans, carried out thorough credit checks and froze interest after two months to protect defaulting customers. It also said that it welcomed competition.

The pay day loan industry in the UK is not regulated like it is in Canada. Many politicians, charities and other organisations are calling for regulation but do not have the solution – the Archbishop is at least trying to push forward an idea. He is proposing that Credit Unions work from church premises to offer similar loans at lower interest rates – his idea is to push pay day lenders out of the market. This certainly sounds like a challenge. For a start he wants to find church members to volunteer as staff at the branches. This may be a big hurdle in terms of attracting customers. The average church goer probably does not reflect the average pay day loan customer. No one wants to be judged when taking out a loan.

A recent study indicated that the average age of a church goer was 61. Anglican leaders have warned that the Church of England will cease to exist in 20 years because elderly worshippers will die. As a result of this the Church presently has an urgent national recruitment drive to attract more members.

Just recently the Rt Rev Paul Butler, Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham stated that teachers should not illustrate math lessons with examples of “profit and loss”, or encourage children to save in order to buy bikes or toys Instead, lessons should focus on the math involved in giving donations to charity, saving for an overseas project, or even “tithing” – giving 10 per cent of one’s income to the Church.

When the Church is making statements like this you have to wonder whether it is the Credit Union/pay day loan “solution” is one part of its necessary recruitment drive. Pay day loan providers want profit, the Church wants people in seats: both have their own agenda.

Although the Rt Rev Paul Butler might not think it important, educating children about profit and loss and savings is all part of money management. This is vital in today’s society – Surely it is better money management which will reduce the need and desire for pay day loans.

Saving your home loan deposit can seem like a difficult task, especially if you are a first home buyer. Luckily, there are a range of things you can do that will help to make it happen sooner than you might think. Here are 5 top tips for saving a home loan deposit efficiently and effectively.

Cut Your Unnecessary Spending

The first step to boosting your savings is to immediately start cutting down on your unnecessary spending. If you want to get a home loan deposit together as fast as possible, it’s worthwhile scaling back what you spend on other things. Every little bit counts, and it can be as small as bringing your own coffee to work, eating at home instead of dinner out, and cutting out impulse spending on luxury items.

Analyse Your Budget

Now that you’ve made a start, it’s time to take a good look at your budget. Analysing your income and expenses will help you to ascertain where your money is going, and how it can be optimised to create a more effective savings plan. Ensure that your budget is clear and comprehensive, and use it to help you maximise your income.

Dedicated Savings

To get the best results, consider opening a new savings account specifically dedicated to your home loan deposit. Look for something that is high interest with low fees to ensure that your savings continue to grow. Divert a set amount of your weekly wage directly into this account, and be sure to add extra contributions whenever you can afford it.

Consider a Professional’s Input

If you feel like you have tried all of the above and still haven’t seen a great boost to your savings, it might be time to call in some expert assistance. Talking to a financial professional can give you new ideas and strategies on the smartest ways to save, helping you to own your dream home sooner. You may even be able to get great advice from a lender, particularly those with a history of helping people to achieve their financial goals. Agencies such as Fox Symes are famous for their quality debt solutions, and have also become specialised in offering great value home loans. By choosing a lender like this, you are truly getting the best of both worlds, and will have all the help you need to effectively save your deposit, fast!

Stick to It!

Now that you have a great savings plan in place and your finances are working efficiently, it’s essential that you focus on the long term. It’s easy to feel discouraged if you get caught up in day to day expenses, and the trick to success is to have a positive attitude and always remember your end goal. Never forget that all of your hard work now is allowing you to achieve the incredible goal of owning your dream home in the future.

With these top tips, you will be able to start a quality savings strategy to help you buy your own home sooner than you might think. Time is of the essence, and when you’re looking at saving a home loan deposit fast, every day counts. Get started today and enjoy the reward of seeing your savings grow!

Home owners are able to cash in on the value of their property through an equity release scheme. They can do this without actually having to sell their property and find a new home. Two schemes exist to make this possible:

• Reversion schemes
• Lifetime mortgages

When you decide to release the equity of your home, deciding which option to go for is but one of many decisions you will have to make. This is why comparing equity release schemes is so important. You should seek not just financial advice, but legal advice as well. When you take money out of the value of your home, this could have a serious financial consequence and you have to be prepared for that.

Equity Release

Equity is surplus value in your property. A home that is worth £200,000 with a £100,000 mortgage has £100,000 in equity. However, equity release schemes aren’t available for anybody, but usually only to older people (over 55 for a lifetime plan and over 60 for a revision plan), who are unlikely to have a regular income.

Most people choose a lifetime mortgage. Here, you essentially take a loan out on the property, which remains yours. The debt has to be repaid when you die or go into long term care, meaning no monthly payments are needed. However, the interest does accumulate, which means you will owe a lot more than you originally owned. So, a £45,000 loan could turn into £152,387 after 25 years.

The drawdown version is the most popular lifetime mortgage. This is for those who don’t need a huge lump sum straight away. Instead, they can dip into a pot of money as and when needed. No interest is paid on the money that is not released.

The other option is the revision scheme. Only very few people use this. Here, you sell your home or part of it to a company, but you retain the right to live in that home. When you die or go into a home and sell the property, you only receive money on the percentage of the home you still own, which is often nothing. You also generally have to pay rent to the company that has purchased your home or part of your home from you.

Do bear in mind that releasing equity in your home can be costly. Usually, you will have to make at least a £1,500 fee and your financial adviser and solicitor will have fees as well.

You are often required to have a deep working knowledge of the Binary Options trading environment when you sign up to some trading sites, whilst some sites do tend to have overly complicated trading interfaces and platforms installed on their sites, it can often lead to some newer traders being confused or even making incorrect trades when using some of these sites.

Should you be relatively new to the world of Binary Options Trading then you will need to pick and choose just which Binary Brokers and Traders sites you sign up to as many of those you will come across allow you to make one click trades which is the only way you should be looking to make Binary Option trades online. Click here to view list of Binary options brokers if you are from UK.

With a one click does everything type of Binary Options Trading platform then you are not going to make mistakes with your trades, and will be able to quickly and very easily select the asset you wish to trade and then make those trades accordingly.
So one of your requisites for choosing any Binary Broker will be to ensure the one you are thinking of utilizing the services has a straight forward and simple to use trading platform. The more complicated the platform becomes then the more likely you are to making often expensive trading errors.

Another couple of features that ant Binary Broker or Binary Options Trading site should offer are both a fully functional Mobile Trading Platform which will of course enable you to make your trades when out and about, plus a reliable telephone support service, which in case of any live trading problems will always respond timely whilst at the same time enable you to phone in any trades you wish to make on the spot.

We are seeing more and more people now turning to trading in Forex Options, this is always popular during and in the run up to the holiday season as this is when traders are looking to lock in value from their spending money on their up and coming holidays and vacations.

This has led to many Binary Option Trading sites pairing up some of the lesser traded currencies of the world and as such you are the able to seamlessly trade your home currency with the value and market swings of the currency of which the country you are visiting has in place.

You will be wanting to lock in value and as such there are more and more Binary Option Trading sites and brokers who are quite prepared to offer you a sign up bonus when you start to use their trading options and trading interfaces for the very first time, and this is where you can not only lock in value but by combining your trades on both new accounts and existing accounts you hold at other sites, you can often guarantee a profitable winning trade by hedging one off against the other with the added trading cash given away by these bonus offers!

With the growth in popularity of online shopping has come a rise in the ways you can pay for goods on the internet. While many people still prefer the more traditional route of paying directly through online banking, there are a number of advantages to using these specialist services – particularly regarding security, which has become one of the biggest challenges for internet shoppers as hackers and fraudsters seek to take advantage of a whole new market.

Whenever you enter your payment details into a site, you are potentially putting them at risk: phishing attacks (in which users are directed to a spoof website that collects their information) and malware that logs keystrokes are just a couple of the ways the bad guys could gain access to your bank account. This has necessitated the development of more secure online payment services.

An example of one of these services is Ukash. With this method, rather than entering your banking details each time you pay for something, you simply exchange a set amount of money for a 19-digit voucher code, which then acts as a virtual “wallet” that can be topped up whenever you want. The code corresponds to how much money you have: whenever you spend, you’ll receive a new code telling you how much you have left.

This means you don’t have to reveal your credit card number to a variety of different shops in order to make a payment – as long as you treat your vouchers as you would cash, your money is secure.