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NISA or nastier?

Summer savers get their NISA rates slashed, banks to offer a second chance to avoid bounced penalty payments, new cash lessons in schools and fears over pension exit fees.

On Money Box with Paul Lewis:

Nisa or nastier?
A record 拢5 billion was put into cash ISAs when the new limit of 拢15,000 began on 1 July. The banks responded by slashing the rates paid. More than 20 ISA providers have cut the rates by an average of 0.34 percentage points. Only half a dozen have raised rates. Why are they cutting rates just when people can put more in? Anna Bowes from Savings Champion joins the programme.

Try again but will it work?
From Monday all banks will give us a second chance to avoid a penalty charge if a payment from our current account is bounced. As long as funds are put in the account by a least 2pm a second try will enable the payment to be made without a penalty. But many banks will not tell us that we have a pending bounced payment. So we will not know that we have to do anything. So we may still have to pay an average of 拢12 for the privilege of missing a payment. Mark Bowerman from The Payments Council explains how the initiative should work.

Money lessons
As teenagers saunter through the school gates next week, they'll have to get to grips with a new topic. From this term, all 11-16 year olds will have lessons in managing money as part of the National Curriculum. Money Box reporter Hannah Moore visits Ivanhoe College in Leicestershire to talk to pupils and teachers about what they are taught and how useful it is.

Price of freedom
The Chancellor has promised that from April 2015 anyone aged at least 55 will be able to take all their pension fund out and - after paying tax - spend it as they like. But there are worrying rumours that the pensions industry is busy planning to restrict this freedom - or at least make hefty charges if we want to enjoy it. Will the price of pension freedom be high? Alan Higham, head of pensions at Fidelity and Hugh Nolan, head actuary at JLT Employee Benefits, explain all.

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30 minutes

Last on

Sun 31 Aug 2014 21:00

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  • Sat 30 Aug 2014 12:04
  • Sun 31 Aug 2014 21:00

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