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It has been reported that Music festivals that do not accept cash payments are heading for the UK next summer.
Revellers attending some UK festivals next summer will be asked to pay electronically for items such as food, drink and t-shirts.
Such payments will be made by using special wristbands which will also double as your entry ticket. The wristbands can be pre-loaded with money before the event.
Barclaycard, which sponsors the Wireless Festival, has said that it hopes next years concert will be cash free.
However, the BBC has stated that none of the festival promoters they contacted would confirm that these devices will be used.

Shoppers could soon breathe a sigh of relief if banks stop the high fee they charge retailers for purchases made with Credit/debit Cards.
It’s reported that it costs high street retailers 2.1p when their customers cash whereas a Debit Card transaction costs 8.5p and a Credit Card 34p.
The Government has promised a shake up of these charges with retailers demanding a fairer system.
If Debit/Credit card charges were as low as the fee for cash transactions, shops could save up to £480m, which in turn could be passed on to consumers through lower shop prices.

I received a email recently from Martin Lewis’ Money Saving Expert website informing me of some more ways to help me save money. One thing I did notice was that Current Account Holders at the bank Santander, can benefit from flexible cash ISA’s paying 3.2%, and which guarantees to be 2.7% above the base rate for the first year. But, this is only available to their Current Account holders who will have to go into their branch to get one.
Although this is the top rate at the moment, it will more than likely drop after the first year.

It’s been reported this week that the inflation on house price’s is back in double figures according to government figures.
The Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) has generally reported that prices in the month of April were 10.1% higher than they were at the same time last year.
This is apparently the biggest turn in inflation since October 2007 when house prices were on a downward trend.
Annual house price growth was 10.9% in England, 2.2% in Scotland and 11.3% in Wales.
However, on average house prices in Northern Ireland fell by 8.9%.
Whilst this is the trend in prices mortgage lending has been very modest in the past year.

The BBC News Channel gladly reported today that the United Kingdom’s Inflation fell faster than expected in the month of May.  The fall was apparently helped by lower food prices and slower rises in the prices of petrol and alcohol.
The Consumer Price Index (CPI) dropped to 3.4% from 3.7% in April according to the Office for National Statistics.
Howard Archer, an analyst at IHS Global Insight, said: “May’s retreat in CPI will be of some relief to the Bank of England and boosts its case that inflation will head down significantly over the coming months.”
The CPI fall also eases pressure on the need to raise interest rates.

The UK inflation rate rose unexpectedly to 3.5% from 2.9% the previous month. There are two measures of inflation the Retail Price Index (RPI) which measures a general domestic inflation by measuring the cost of a fixed basket of retail goods.Consumer Price Index (CPI) is a second measure of inflation which is a more general measure of inflation and is the  measure targeted by the Bank of England.

The increase was a result of the rising of VAT back to 17.5% and higher petrol prices. However, this rise has taken the CPI more than 1% above the government target. Mervyn King must write a letter to the chancellor to explain the rise.

Many economists had fears that inflation would begin to rise with the injection of £200bn into the economy through quantitative easing. (QE)

At the mint in Chile, the general manager has lost has job after failing to stop the issue of 50 peso coins which were struck with a spelling mistake. It is particularly embarrassing as the mistake is the name of the country. Instead of the Chile the coins were stamped with Chiie. Such a dramatic mistake has turned the coins into a numismatists delight. People are keeping them in the hope that they will rise in value.  Rather than trying to destroy the coins they will remain in circulation. This is not the only mistake that has been made by the mint. There have been two incidents where rare coins and medal which should have been kept in the museum have found their way onto the open market and being sold to coin collectors.

Although news of a finishing recession definatly bring hope, unfortently it doesn’t solve our countries record high unemployment rate.

Students seem to be having the hardest time, with nearly 30% of them not finding work. With the raising amount of students in the UK this will only make the rates worse.

The Job Centres around the country are reporting their busiest times for a number of years and are deploying a number of new techniques to try and get as many people working as possible.

After all the troubles over that past year, the economy has finally grown, not by much, infact only about 0.6%. But it is news that we are now out of a recession.

First in, Last out.

Lets hope this is a sign of good things to come and can hopefully learn from our mistakes to avoid a similar situation in the future.

Knowing the banks around England, they will be back to their old tricks in no time at all, so it’s up to us to voice our opinions to avoid another disaster.

First point to make is that is anyone surprised? Banks are never open when you need them!

Facts and figures have come in last week that report that over 50% of the UK now use online banking. With the ease of access and wide number of features which can be accessed online, it makes the best solution for most of your banking requirements.

Even loans, new accounts etc can be dealt online with the paperwork being mailed to you.

This increase in users may also have something to do with the weather as well, with a lot of people being forced in doors due to poor access to local villages / towns / cities.