No credit check home owner insurance

How the UK tackles the impending pension crisis is now a major topic of discussion. But will anyone have the guts to fix it in 2005? In the first of a two-part series, Joanne Segars, representing insurance firms, outlines the industry’s priorities for the New Year.

2004 was a year in which pensions and savings […]

The week-long mega-wedding of the two sons of Sahara business group chief Subrata Roy will begin in the northern Indian city of Lucknow on Tuesday.

Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, Bollywood stars Amitabh Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan and Aishwarya Rai and cricketers Saurav Ganguly and Sachin Tendulkar are among the 10,500 guests who have been […]

But the world’s biggest drug company, most famous for erectile-dysfunction pill Viagra, faces an uncertain outlook.

A Chinese court is hearing an appeal by Pfizer against the withdrawal of the Chinese patent for Viagra. The authorities quashed the patent saying it didn’t show conclusively that it worked. Pfizer says the authorities simply didn’t understand the research.

If […]

Deutsche Bank chairman Josef Ackermann is facing a second investigation for fraud and breach of trust.

A prosecutor in the German city of Duesseldorf has confirmed that he is looking into allegations against Dr Ackermann and Rolf Breuer, head of the bank’s supervisory board, in connection with its sale of life insurer Deutsche Herold to Zurich […]

The Competition Commission has demanded a shake up of the store card industry that will mean big changes for the industry and borrowers.

What has the Competition Commission concluded?

In short, the Commission has found that store card holders are being overcharged by at least 55m a year - and possibly much more - as a […]

BBC Radio 4’s Money Box has been named Financial Programme of the Year at a prestigious ceremony in London.
Money Box Presenter Paul Lewis collected the award at the Association of British Insurers (ABI) event on Wednesday.
Other nominees in the Financial Programme or Broadcaster of the Year category were the BBC’s Andrew Verity and Declan Curry.
The […]

Friends Provident has been fined 675,000 for mis-handling mortgage endowment complaints.

The Financial Services Authority said the company’s treatment of complaints had, in the past, been “biased” against customers.

The insurer is now reviewing all complaints it rejected between January 2000 and 10 February 2003.

Millions of people in the 1980s took out endowments - a […]

India’s parliament has passed the national budget amid a boycott by opposition parties.

There was no discussion on tax proposals announced as part of the 4,780 billion rupees ($104bn) budget.

The lower house passed the budget by a voice vote as opposition MPs stayed away after alleging that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had insulted them.

Parliament has been […]

From 1st December banks and building societies will be able to offer a wider range of investments, pension and insurance, and independent financial advisers won’t look so special any more. They’ll also all have to tell us more about how they make their money.

The nostalgia is already setting in among Britain’s army of independent financial […]

The value of UK financial services exports such as insurance broking and investment banking hit a record $19bn in 2004, a study has shown.

The global stock market recovery lifted sales in the City of London and exports grew by 9%, research firm International Financial Services London said.

Insurance was the largest foreign earner, with exports […]