Experian Reveals Mid-Life Makeover Trend

Experian CreditExpert, the UK’s most trusted credit monitoring service, has revealed that men and woman in their 40s and 50s are taking ownership of their existential questions and seizing the opportunity to take real life-changing and self-affirming steps in their life.*

The mid-life crisis is often perceived as a ‘curse’ of middle age, associated with men of a certain age attempting to relive their youth through extravagant purchases like sports cars and designer clothing. But as average life expectancy, and with it the age of retirement, creeps ever upward, this is all changing for men and women in their 40s and 50s.

85% of 40-59 year-olds surveyed by Experian CreditExpert had felt the need to change their life situation in the last five years, with responses demonstrating that, far from the expected plans to splash out on cosmetic surgery or fast cars, mid-lifers are making decisions that directly impact their work and life happiness, giving themselves a second chance at achieving their ambitions and desires – from changing career or learning new skills to seeing the world.

70% gave ‘travelling the world’ as one of their goals in later life, with the next most popular options being ‘spending time learning new things’ (46%) and ‘dedicating my life to a favourite hobby’ (29%). By comparison, only 13% (and only 3% of men) would have a cosmetic makeover, and purchasing a sporty new run-around did not feature at all.

The most clear gender divide was over what middle-aged men and women were most hoping to achieve by making life changes. Among men, gaining a better work/life balance was the most popular answer which was given by 32% of males (compared with just 20% of females). By comparison, women’s priorities were focused on adventure and gaining new life experiences with 36% giving this answer, compared with 30% of males.

Simple life changes were shown to have the biggest effect on most people’s happiness, as ‘making a career change’ and ‘making new friends’ were both expressed as having had a significant positive impact on their lives in recent years by 51% of those polled.

Money was predictably shown to play a big part in achieving one’s life goals. 69% said that a sudden change in their financial situation, such as an unexpected windfall or pay rise, would be the factor that was likely to kick-start their own ‘mid-life makeover’. 74% felt that their financial situation was the only thing still holding them back from making significant changes.

“People entering their late 40s in 2011 are still only halfway through their working lives”, said Pete Turner, managing director of Experian Interactive. “These results show that, far from throwing money at new toys in a ‘quick fix’, many are channelling their energy towards making positive, fulfilling changes. Preparing for the ‘mid-life makeover’ by cleaning up your credit rating can, for many, be the first step towards achieving those dreams.”

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Churchwood Financial Ltd Made A DEMSA Member

Churchwood Financial Ltd has been accepted as a member of the Debt Managers Standards Association (DEMSA).

The code of practice that all DEMSA members sign up to has been approved by the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) and goes beyond the basic legal requirements to protect consumers’ interests. It is also the only such scheme in the UK that has OFT accreditation.

Paul Naden, Chief Executive Officer at the company, comments: “This is a fantastic achievement for Churchwood Financial and is the highest accolade in compliance a debt management company can achieve.”

“Compliance is critical to the future of our business and over the last 18 months we have invested a substantial amount of time and money to help improve our internal processes, monitoring capabilities and marketing materials. Those in need of debt management advice can come to Churchwood Financial and be assured of a high-quality, transparent and professional service that puts their best interests at heart.”

Among the steps that the firm has taken are extending and strengthening its compliance team – as well as appointing Michael Pollard as compliance director – and establishing a dedicated quality monitoring team to ensure that high standards of customer care and accuracy are maintained and recorded.

Mr Pollard states: “Our acceptance by DEMSA is a tribute to all the hard work, commitment, integrity and teamwork demonstrated by our staff. I would particularly like to thank the compliance team for their efforts and am proud of this achievement,” adding “DEMSA approval will benefit all our customers, as well as the company.”

Mr Naden echoed his sentiments, noting that the financial well-being of its clients has always been a top priority.

“We have always endeavoured to provide the best possible service to those in need of assistance regarding debt. Our DEMSA membership only serves to highlight our commitment to helping people follow the road to a debt-free future,” he says.

Churchwood Financial is already a member of the Debt Resolution Forum (DRF), an association designed to promote professional standards within the debt management industry.

The DEMSA and DRF Codes of Conduct are designed to ensure the fair treatment of customers. All members’ advertisements should be accurate and truthful, members should provide clear upfront information to clients, offer comprehensible and fair contractual terms and ensure that any deposits or prepayments taken from customers are securely processed and protected.

In addition, DEMSA and DRF members must comply fully with the Office of Fair Trading’s debt management guidance and provide a user-friendly procedure for consumers to register complaints.

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Standard Life Reveals Commitment Peak Begins At 35 For Average Person In The UK

Standard Life has published ‘Your Commitments, Your Future’, a study developed with psychologist Professor Janet Reibstein into the nature of commitment. It reveals that financial and emotional commitments peak between 35-44 years of age when people spend on average £1,160 a month on financial commitments and think about them for 45 minutes every day.

The research reveals that during a lifetime, the average person spends £914 a month on financial commitments and 37 minutes thinking about them everyday. In contrast, they spend £87 a month on emotional commitments, thinking about them for 2 hours, 18 minutes every day.

According to the Standard Life study there are three core commitment life stages with transition phases in between:

– Commitment Sleepwalkers (18-24) who have a smaller amount of financial and personal relationship commitments. Their regular financial commitments amount to just £458 a month. They spend the least amount of time thinking about their finances so are at risk of overlooking the long term cumulative affects of these costs.

– The Fully Committed (35-44) who are at the peak of their regular financial commitments, spending an average of £1,160 each month and likely to be paying a mortgage, looking after a child and paying off any debt accrued in earlier life.

– Commitment Slowdowns (55+) who are starting to become less financially and emotionally committed. They are spending £818 on their commitments each month, almost £100 less that the average.

Commenting on the research findings, Professor Reibstein said: “‘Your Commitments, Your Future’ shows a discrepancy in how much attention we devote to our financial and emotional commitments. We spend over two hours a day thinking about emotional commitments, but just 37 minutes on our financial commitments.

“People consider financial commitments as something abstract, separate to their emotional life. But our finances underpin our most important relationships and often our ability to achieve our future goals. The Standard Life report makes it clear how vital it is for people to engage with their finances, their personal relationships and future aspirations as one single entity.”

Standard Life’s John Lawson added: “‘Your Commitments, Your Future’ breaks our commitments down into life stages, giving a clear picture of how our commitments change throughout our life. This understanding can help substantially with planning our personal finances so that we can feel confident about the future and achieve our goals. It’s clear that financial commitments can support our relationships – they underpin them. If people were to dedicate more time to their long term financial planning, they wouldn’t just be better off financially, they’re likely to be better off all round.”

The full ‘Your Commitments, Your Future’ report is available at knowyourcommitments.co.uk where people can also compare their financial and
emotional commitment profile by using an interactive tool and watch Professor Reibstein analysing commitment in more detail.

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Hays Launches A Series Of Videos Offering Advice To Finance Professionals

Hays Senior Finance has launched a series of vodcasts offering expert career advice to finance professionals within the UK. The films are short interviews designed to offer bite-size advice and information, to equip finance professionals with information, and make the experience of searching and finding a job much easier.

Career pieces include:

– Paul Venables, Group Finance Director at Hays, explaining which skills are helpful to building a successful long-term finance career.
– James Brent, Business Director, and Louisa London, Senior Manager, at Hays Accountancy & Finance discuss the current finance recruitment market for accountancy professionals.

Nik Pratap, Director at Hays Senior Finance, the leading recruiting expert said: “Expert career advice is valued by finance professionals themselves and employers. Not only is sound career advice important in helping professionals understand what skills they need but it also helps employers find the most suitable people.

“The new web area allows finance professionals to ask questions – we are interacting with them and answering some of the most commonly asked questions by accountants looking to make their next career move. We recognise the need to provide advice in a number of different formats. Hays already offer face to face advice and write regular advice pieces – the online vodcasts allow us to give a new dimension to the way that people view the advice they get from us.”

The information is free to download from http://www.hays.co.uk/experts-talk.

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Admiral Reports British Parking Habits Getting Many Hot Under The Collar

Admiral has revealed new research which suggests parking a car can be a controversial issue, with more than one in six motorists saying they have argued with a neighbour over a parking space and almost one in five admitting they have parked illegally.

Car insurance expert Admiral surveyed 2,500 motorists to find out their habits when it comes to parking. It found that 16% of them have argued with a neighbour over a space. Regionally, motorists in the North West are the most likely to get into a row over parking, compared to those in Scotland who are least likely to.

Sue Longthorn, Admiral managing director, said: “For something we probably do every day it would seem parking can cause problems, with many motorists getting into an argument with a neighbour over it. As our roads get more crowded, we want to ensure we have our own parking space, preferably outside our own home, but this really isn’t something worth getting into a row about.”

Admiral also found that while four in ten motorists have never had a parking ticket, the average motorist has received 1.7 tickets. This could be because 18% of respondents said they sometimes park illegally on double yellow lines. This is much more common among men than women, with 22% of men compared with 13% of women saying they do it. In Wales, nearly one in four admitted they park illegally, the highest of any part of the UK. At the other end of the table, only 14% of motorists in Yorkshire and the East Midlands said they have done it.

Getting a ticket for parking illegally is most likely to happen in London. Londoners said they have had the highest number of parking tickets, with an average of 3.9. Only 21% in London have never had a ticket, perhaps not surprising considering the number of traffic wardens in the capital.

What is a surprise is that despite having the highest percentage admitting to parking illegally, Wales also has the highest percentage of motorists who have never had a ticket, with 50%. This compares with 40% across the UK as a whole.

When it comes to how drivers park, only 2% said they don’t always try to park considerately in car parks. However twice that figure, 4%, admitted they have parked in a space reserved for disabled motorists.

Motorists appear to be more willing to use spaces reserved for parents with children when they shouldn’t. One in eight owned up to doing this, and perhaps surprisingly, just as many women as men said they have done it.

Sue Longthorn continued: “Thankfully relatively few people admitted they park how or where they shouldn’t. Using a disabled space when you’re not permitted or parking inconsiderately in a car park can be particularly selfish and can cause problems for other road users. We’d just ask all motorists to think of others when choosing where to park their car.”

More information on this and the rest of Admiral’s Annual Survey of British Motorists can be found at www.admiral.com/surveyofmotorists.

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Efficiency Uplift As Finance Firm Takes To The Clouds

Cloud computing is set to deliver a down-to-earth £40,000 annual saving for a major UK finance group – and provide an ultra-secure back-up for millions of pieces of vital company information.

The Funding Corporation, based in Chester, is now getting ready to scrap more than fifty percent of the 100-plus servers currently used to back-up its customer files and other data.

In place of the costly and bulky physical technology will come a remote back-up facility provided by computer data recovery specialist Acronis.

Not only will the move represent major financial savings for the company, it will also achieve a vast reduction – of over 90 percent – in the time previously spent retrieving archived data.

Time taken to create a full back-up of The Funding Corporation’s systems and information will also be greatly scaled down.

Data sent to the “virtual servers” provided by Acronis is fully encrypted, and the system meets the strict security regulations which govern data storage by members of the financial industry.

Dan Tinsley, Principal Systems Engineer at The Funding Corporation, said that the company’s rate of growth meant that its previous back-up and recovery systems were becoming untenable:

“Simply adding more and more servers to hold our data would not be cost-effective, and would have meant constantly increasing the time taken to retrieve stored information.

“Now, however, we can look at executing a full recovery, should it ever be needed, in a matter of hours instead of days using the company server-based system,” said Dan.

He also points out that by using off-site storage provided by Acronis, The Funding Corporation’s data is completely protected from potential disasters such as fire, floods and theft.

The company, recently named “Responsible Lender of the Year” by Credit Today, provides motor finance for the growing number of people unable to borrow from mainstream lenders.

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Business Monitor International Launches A Brand New Nordics Power Report

Business Monitor International (BMI) has introduced to its portfolio a brand new Nordics Power Report, covering Denmark, Finland and Sweden. This addition adds depth to BMI’s global power market views, and its analysis of the European power sector.

The Nordic countries covered in the report are mature electricity markets and, according to BMI’s forecasts, they will experience modest growth both in terms of generation and capacity over the forecast period (2011-2015). Considering that electricity demand is forecast to see only limited growth between now and 2020, the main priority for Denmark, Finland and Sweden is to replace ageing plants with additional cleaner generation capacity.

The Report provides key forecasts and in-depth analysis of the Nordic power market, including electricity generation, consumption, trade, power generation costs and transmission. The industry forecasts for gas, coal, oil, nuclear, hydro and renewable are supported by BMI assumptions and analysis of key risks to BMI core scenario. Within this, the report analyses the impact of regulatory changes, recent industry developments and the background macroeconomic outlook. It also features a competitive landscape of the Nordic power markets comparing multinational and national operators by sales, market share, investments, projects, partners and expansion strategies.

Electricity consumption and generation in Denmark, Finland and Sweden is expected to grow only moderately in the coming years. However, weak demographic dynamics and slow economic recovery as the result of government programmes are expected to impact power markets across Europe. BMI holds a similar outlook for Central and Eastern Europe with the exception of the Turkey power sector, which we expect to exhibit strong growth, driven by a sharp rise in its power consumption over the coming years.

BMI’s portfolio of products and services provides comprehensive analysis of the global power industry and enables industry professionals, strategists, sector analysts and equity investors to identify key market opportunities and avoid market risks wherever they operate.

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Prudential Reports Pensioner Inflation To Cut Spending Power 60 Per Cent Over A 20 Year Retirement

Prudential has revealed that pensioners retiring this year on a fixed income could lose 60 per cent of their spending power over the course of a 20 year retirement.

Analysis from Prudential shows that the average person retiring in 2011 expects an annual income of £16,600, but if that income remains fixed it will be worth a mere£6,700 in today’s money in 20 years’ time – effectively a £10,000 pay cut. In fact, assuming that inflation remains at its current level, pensioners will need their retirement income to more than double (to over £40,000), if they expect to maintain their standard of living for the next 20 years.

Pensioner inflation or ‘Silver RPI’ is higher because people of retirement age spend a greater proportion of their income on goods and services that are subject to the highest rates of inflation – such as food and fuel.

Vince Smith Hughes, Head of Business Development at Prudential, said: “Pensioners on a fixed income are particularly vulnerable when it comes to rising living costs and our figures demonstrate the true extent to which ‘Silver RPI’ impacts on the spending power of those in retirement.

“There are alternatives to a fixed income in retirement, for example choosing a flexible income plan that has the potential to grow could help many retirees to mitigate the effects of increasing living costs. We recommend that people approaching retirement seek professional financial advice to help them understand all the retirement income options open them.”

Research by Age UK recently found that ‘Silver RPI’ has averaged 4.6 per cent a year since January 2008 – nearly 50 per cent more than the 3.1 per cent average annual inflation recorded by the Retail Prices Index (RPI) over the same period.

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Northern Rock Introduces New Online Reward Instant Access Account For Savers

Northern Rock has launched a new competitive Online Reward account, adding further options to its flexible savings range.

For those who prefer the convenience of the internet with which to manage their savings, Online Reward, which is available to open with a minimum deposit of £5,000, pays a competitive interest rate of 3.11% gross* pa/AER** variable on balances over £5,000, which includes a bonus rate of 1.61% gross* for the first 12 months from account opening. (Balances falling below this rate will receive Northern Rock’s prevailing rate of interest which is 0.10% gross* pa/AER** variable).

Those who prefer a monthly interest option can choose to receive 3.07% gross* variable (3.11% AER**), and additional deposits can be made up to the maximum balance of £100,000. Only one account per customer per issue is allowed.

Interest can be paid annually on 11 March. Alternatively, interest can be paid monthly on the 10th day of the month (available next business day or three days following this if the funds are sent via BACS to an external account).

Withdrawals from Online Reward can be made via a nominated bank or building society account without notice or charge (there is a £35 fee if customers choose to transfer via CHAPS). The minimum withdrawal amount is £1.

To apply for Online Reward, interested parties can visit www.northernrock.co.uk, or for more information regarding Northern Rock’s other savings products, call 0845 631 5151 (calls are charged at the service provider’s prevailing rate and may be monitored and recorded).

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Payday Express Underlines The Importance Of Effective Staff Inductions

With its recruitment at an all-time high, payday loans specialist Payday Express is keen to point out that a proper induction plays a key role in maximising the potential of new staff.

The instant approval payday loans company recently welcomed 12 new faces into its midst – the highest number of new employees it has ever taken on at one time.

To ensure that new starters are able to embark on their development within the company from the outset, Payday Express has devised an induction process in which all new starters take part to introduce them to the company mission, vision, policies and processes; as well as helping them to develop a big-picture view of the business and where they fit into it.

Lasting two days, the process gives new employees an introduction to how each department operates and how it relates to the rest of the business. The induction also includes training in anti money laundering (AML), data protection, customer service and learning styles, among other subjects.

Following the initial two-day welcome programme, new starters at the fast payday loanscompany then spend two weeks becoming acquainted with the company’s systems and processes and are assigned a ‘buddy’ – an experienced member of staff – to advise them and be on hand to answer any questions they may have.

Payday Express Operations Manager Sarah Carroll said: “We’re very focused on making the effort to recruit the right people for the job and, once we have, to ensure they hit the ground running with training and development.

“This is so that they can play a part in delivering the exemplary service we aim to offer our customers, add value to the organisation, and develop within their careers.

“We are passionate about learning and development and it is important for us to make every effort to afford our staff learning opportunities from the moment they join our company.”

HR Advisor Richard Turner added: “”It’s exciting to see how much the business is growing, with how many new staff we’re hiring. It’s great to see so many new faces this month – and I wish everyone the best of luck in their new roles.”

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elephant.co.uk Reveals Scottish Drivers Like To Make It Personal

Motorists living in Scotland are the most likely to own a personalised numberplate new research by elephant.co.uk has revealed. And the plates are odds-on to be seen adorning the bumpers of luxury cars such as Bentleys, Ferraris and Aston Martins.

Car insurance specialist elephant.co.uk looked at 3.5 million policies and found that of the top 10 postcodes where personalised plates are popular, eight are in Scotland, with the affluent settlement of Kilmacolm in Inverclyde at the top of the list. 14% of drivers there own a personalised plate compared to a national average of 4%.

In second place we move to the other end of the country to the millionaire’s playground of Sandbanks in Dorset (13%), but then in third place it’s back up north with the prosperous Glasgow commuter area of Newton Mearns (12%). Also in the top 10 are a number of postcodes in and around Aberdeen, with North Ferriby in Humberside joining Sandbanks as the only other location outside of Scotland.

Brian Martin, managing director of elephant.co.uk, said: “Considering the affluent areas around the country where we see the highest proportion of personalised number plates, it certainly looks like they’re used as a status symbol.

“However, it’s hard to say why they’re so popular in Scotland specifically. Maybe Scottish motorists look to express their individuality more than those in the rest of the UK.”

When it comes to what cars the personalised plates appear on, it’s perhaps no surprise that owners of luxury models are the most likely to splash out on them. In fact, the whole top 10 list is made up of prestige motors. Most popular is the Bentley Continental, with 36% carrying a personalised plate. This is followed by the Ferrari 360 and Aston Martin DB7 (both on 35%).

Brian continued: “It wasn’t a surprise to see that prestige models dominate the list, however, it was surprising to see that such a large number of Bentley Continental, Ferrari 360 and Aston Martin DB7 owners splash out on personalised plates. Drivers of those cars definitely want to stand out from the crowd.”

When it comes to occupations, elephant.co.uk found that Company Chairmen are head and shoulders above the rest with 16% owning one, followed by Bank Directors on 12% and Property Developers on 11%.

elephant.co.uk also looked at those areas, occupations and vehicles with the lowest percentage of personalised plates. The Hilborough and Northwold area near Thetford, Norfolk was revealed as the area of the UK with the lowest percentage of cars with personalised numberplates, croupiers were the occupation at the bottom of the list whilst the Suzuki Liana is the vehicle least likely to have one attached to it.

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