Recent financial times artcile stated that all the UK high street banks made a combined £40 bn gross profit for 2007, with a total of £18 bn of write offs for bad debts. giving a net profit of £22 bn for 2007 across all banks, not bad for a years trading?
House prices may be on the wane, but for the canny buy-to-let investor that is not necessarily a bad thing.
According to the latest confidence tracker from property investment consultancy 77.5 per cent are undaunted by current interest rates, a sizeable ten per cent increase on the figure recorded at the end of 2007.
Seventy-one per cent of investors said they thought it was a good time to buy more property, although this was down on February’s figure of 80 per cent. (more…)
The Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee today voted to reduce the official Bank Rate paid on commercial bank reserves by 0.25 percentage points to 5.0%.
CPI inflation rose to 2.5% in February. The Committee expects inflation to rise further this year, reflecting the continuing impact of higher energy and food prices, as well as the recent depreciation of sterling on import costs. Such pressures are already evident in producer input costs and pricing intentions.
Even if commodity prices remain at their current high levels, inflation should fall back. But to ensure that inflation meets the 2% target in the medium term, the Committee needs to balance two risks. On the upside, above-target inflation this year could raise inflation expectations so that, in the absence of some margin of spare capacity, (more…)