People living in and around London will be interested in the first new bank to be opened in the UK for more than 100 years. Metro Bank has just opened their first branch in Holborn and plans to open another branch in Earls Court in August this year. A further 10 branches are promised over the next 2 years with a network of 200 branches during the next 10 years. All will be within the M25.
It doesn’t look as though they will win any prizes for competitive interest rates and instead will focus on better service and convenient opening hours. Branches will be open 7 days a week and from 8am to 8pm Monday to Friday; 8am until 6pm on Saturdays and 11am to 4pm on Sundays.
Branches will have toilets and dog owners will be pleased to learn that they can take their dogs into the bank where they will be given a bowl of water and a bone (the dog, not the owner).
You can use their free coin counting machines to count up all the extra pennies you can make by working after 65 now that the Government are going to make it illegal for your firm to push you out just because you’ve reached retirement age.
Be well
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Monday, July 12, 2010
EVERYONE ON LINE?
Martha Lane-Fox strikes me as being a bit of a feisty lady who knows her own mind and has been very successful in various ventures, not least of which was lastminute.com, the travel website she co-founded.
You may have heard that she’s started out on a new venture to get everyone in the UK using the Internet by 2012. It seems that there are something like 10 million people in this country who are not yet switched on. Now this seems to be a pretty ambitious target and there are always those people around who simply do not want to get hooked up to any kind of new technology and simply refuse to try and understand it. I remember many years ago visiting an old great-aunt of mine and the bulb had blown in the main light in her sitting room. I offered to change it for her, but she was worried that if I removed the bulb the electricity would fall out!
The time will soon come when our retired population will have grown up with computers and it will be second nature to them. They couldn’t imagine life without a computer or the Internet in much the same way as we couldn’t now imagine life without a telephone or a TV or radio. I can’t see it happening by 2012, but I wish her luck with the project.
You are obviously computer literate or you wouldn’t be reading this, but do you have friends who are not on the Internet? Maybe you could help Martha by getting them interested.
Be well.
You may have heard that she’s started out on a new venture to get everyone in the UK using the Internet by 2012. It seems that there are something like 10 million people in this country who are not yet switched on. Now this seems to be a pretty ambitious target and there are always those people around who simply do not want to get hooked up to any kind of new technology and simply refuse to try and understand it. I remember many years ago visiting an old great-aunt of mine and the bulb had blown in the main light in her sitting room. I offered to change it for her, but she was worried that if I removed the bulb the electricity would fall out!
The time will soon come when our retired population will have grown up with computers and it will be second nature to them. They couldn’t imagine life without a computer or the Internet in much the same way as we couldn’t now imagine life without a telephone or a TV or radio. I can’t see it happening by 2012, but I wish her luck with the project.
You are obviously computer literate or you wouldn’t be reading this, but do you have friends who are not on the Internet? Maybe you could help Martha by getting them interested.
Be well.
Friday, July 9, 2010
PRIVATE PENSIONS UNDER ATTACK
Well, they had a go at public sector pensions and now the UK government want to have a pop at the private sector.
This chap, Steve Webb, who is the Pensions Minister, wants to link the increase in private sector pensions to the Consumer Price Index (CPI) rather than the Retail Price Index (RPI). Now you might not think that this amounts to much in the overall scheme of things. It's just another way of measuring inflation, isn't it? Yes and no, but funnily enough over the last 20 years the CPI is nearly always lower than the RPI. This means that the increase in your private pension is going to be less than it has been in the past. According to those clever accounting people at KPMG, this could save the private sector pension providers a whopping £100 billion.
Pensions in general seem to be under attack from all sides under the current austerity measures that are being introduced. Maybe you should write to your MP, or if you think you're going to need a bit more cash in your retirement you can get some ideas from Retirement Revenue. Click on this link: http://retirementrevenue.co.uk
Be well.
This chap, Steve Webb, who is the Pensions Minister, wants to link the increase in private sector pensions to the Consumer Price Index (CPI) rather than the Retail Price Index (RPI). Now you might not think that this amounts to much in the overall scheme of things. It's just another way of measuring inflation, isn't it? Yes and no, but funnily enough over the last 20 years the CPI is nearly always lower than the RPI. This means that the increase in your private pension is going to be less than it has been in the past. According to those clever accounting people at KPMG, this could save the private sector pension providers a whopping £100 billion.
Pensions in general seem to be under attack from all sides under the current austerity measures that are being introduced. Maybe you should write to your MP, or if you think you're going to need a bit more cash in your retirement you can get some ideas from Retirement Revenue. Click on this link: http://retirementrevenue.co.uk
Be well.
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