ED MONK: Pensions will be front and centre as the election looms - the industry would be wise to show it's willing to change

By Ed Monk for MailOnline
Published: 17:33 GMT, 8 January 2014 | Updated: 13:08 GMT, 9 January 2014
Pensions Minister Steve Webb flew a kite on Sunday that was shouted down from the sky by Monday.
Mr Webb told a weekend newspaper that he'd like to see annuities – which most of us have to buy to turn our retirement savings into an income - become 'switchable' so that those in retirement can shop for a better deal every few years, like you can with a mortgage.
This, in the minister's mind, could free retirees who are locked into miserable returns and would inject much needed competition into the annuities market beyond that first, too often fateful, buying decision.

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Flying kites: Pensions Minister Steve Webb face insults after his proposal - but the mood may turn in his favour.
The idea went down exceedingly badly with the pension industry, the polite members of which suggested the minister had 'not thought this one through'. Others remarked on the 'breathtaking extent of his ignorance surrounding annuities'.
Many of the objections were valid, chief among them that the whole basis for pricing annuities would have to change because gauging the risk of providing a guaranteed income for life would become near impossible if the buyer could walk away after a few years.
But other objections were the usual straw men constructed by vested interests. For example, some heroically pointed out that fixed-term annuities already exist for those that want to choose them, rendering the minister an idiot. This, of course, spectacularly misses the point that half of retirees don't make an active annuity choice so would never be aware of fixed-term options, no matter how good they were.
Enlightened corners of the pensions industry were less bombastic and gave Webb's idea a cautious welcome, despite their reservations about the practicalities. They can feel the times a-changin' for pensions and see that now is not the time for any industry - particularly one responsible for the incomes of vulnerable people - to be boorishly shouting down its critics. 
Those with foresight understand that politicians rarely think out loud to newspapers without a deeper agenda. In a month or so the City regulator will shed more light on the annuities when it publishes its thematic review of the market - including a look at the profit margins being made.
Reports have suggested insurers are making as much as 20 per cent on retirement pots when converting them to annuities. The only published figure relates to one insurer, Standard Life, and estimates the margin on recent new annuity business to be 14.9 per cent. The sole published figure is unlikely to be the highest across the industry.
Perhaps the Pensions Minister has an idea of what the regulator will say next month, perhaps not. But should he suspect that margins will be shown to be high, wouldn't it make sense to come up with proposals, no matter how unthinkable they may first appear, that could force through a greater degree of competition to pass some of that fat back to individuals?

The stakes were only raised further by the weekend's other big announcement on pensions - the Prime Minister's confirmation that the triple-lock guarantee of state pension rises will continue beyond 2015 if he's re-elected.
It's an expensive commitment for the country to bear and one that has been criticised by serious economists, as well as some on his own side. More than anything, it puts pensions front and centre of the political stage less than 18 months from an election. 
With the Government battling to justify this protection for pensioner incomes, and critics hammering home how much it will cost the taxpayer, how do you think companies that quietly waltz off with a fifth  of retirees' pension pots will be viewed?
It's during such times that politicians begin to think the unthinkable. Ask the energy companies.
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ED MONK: Fund managers have led a charmed existence - they should recognise that the wind may be about to change

By Ed Monk for MailOnline
Published: 11:59 GMT, 19 November 2014 | Updated: 14:01 GMT, 19 November 2014
Aside from the odd bit of gentle questioning about periods of poor performance, fund managers generally get an easy ride.
They certainly haven't had to defend themselves against grandstanding politicians, or tough-talking regulators, in the way that other industries have had to do recently.
However, I fear that unless they show a willingness to engage in a discussion about the way they operate, this could change.

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New demands are being placed on the investment industry - they must be willing to change to rise to the challenge.
Two unconnected reports this week shed light on investment charges, and both were straightforwardly critical of the industry and the way it works against the interest of consumers.
The Financial Services Consumer Panel - actually a creature of the Financial Conduct Authority, albeit one with few teeth - explained that investors can end up paying several times the quoted annual management charge because fund managers are free to add in fees for almost anything they like at a later stage.
And because they can pay for it from investors' money, there is no incentive for them to drive these costs lower.
Even measures designed to better reflect the total cost of an investment, such as the ongoing charges figure that Europe requires to be published, exclude significant costs, the report said.
Secondly, the very clever people at the Cass Business School ran 'Monte Carlo simulations' to find out how different returns for investors would be if fund managers changed how they charged.
Specifically, if fund managers used performance-based charging where they shared any downside with investors.
The Cass work is weighty, academic stuff  - 'a manager compensated with an incentive fee and a high water mark will place a constant fraction in the risky asset if they are operating in an in?nite horizon setting'! - and difficult to summarise here.
But it's own précis was that most fund managers choose to charge in the way that is 'generally the best structure for the manager and the worst for the investor'.
'How long can an industry ignore the best interests of its customers?', Cass asks.
For those who follow these issues, the conclusions of these reports won't be new. However, what is new is the potential for detriment to the public.
The stakes are beginning to rise because several social and political changes are now in process that will funnel incalculable extra funds to investment managers in the years ahead.
The shelter that up to now has been provided by the state and by generous company pensions is more uncertain than ever before and it is the investment industry that is being asked to provide an alternative.
The slow death of the defined benefit pension, aka the final salary scheme, means workers who would never have had to gamble on shares will now have to do so in order to save for their retirement.
Automatic enrolment, too, means even the lowest paid workers will be dependent on fund managers, and pressure on the state pension will push workers to set more of their earnings aside in a stock market-invested pot.
More immediately, pension freedom will give people access to great sums of cash from their retirement savings, along with the the responsibility to ensure it can provide an income for their retirement. They may never have heard of a unit trust before.
It's inevitable that some of the investments made will disappoint.
When this has happened in the past the losers have been, relatively speaking, knowledgeable investors who have bought shares and funds on top of other assets, like a house, company pension and cash savings.
They have tended not to end up on the bread line as a consequence of investments under-performing and many in the investment world have been happy to remind them of caveat emptor, and move swiftly on.
But it won't be so easy to dismiss losses in the future and the cut that managers take will come under greater scrutiny.
The politicians who helped bring these changes about will have an interest in ensuring ordinary people are not losing out unduly. They will look for any fat in the system that can be passed back to savers and will find it easy to cast City firms as villains if they need to.
Meanwhile, the media will, rightly, pounce on stories of ordinary people getting a raw deal and hammer the companies at fault. It has the potential to get very messy and it's at times like this that companies find themselves fair game for politicians and regulators under pressure to act.
Grilling: Fund managers have not felt the ire of politicians, as the bankers have.

Ask the energy companies. Ask the annuity providers. Ask the banks.
I am glad to say that we are some way off this scenario and I believe it can be avoided, but investment managers must play their part.
Some progress has been made. The Government has already imposed a cap on AMCs on auto-enrolment default pensions.
While this won't cover all the extra charges that fund managers lump on, it will mean they are made clear to trustees and management committees - professionals who should know more than employees and who can act in their interests.
Meanwhile, the FCA is taking a frustrating wait-and-see stance on retail fund charging.
Its work from May this year concluded that there was little consistency in how charges were presented and that investors were not always treated fairly. Yet it has resolved to wait for new EU-driven rules on fee disclosure that are not due before 2017.
Even these changes would only require disclosure of the estimated ongoing charge figure - the same figure that the Consumer Panel report said was incomplete.
Action needs to be swifter and firmer. The Consumer Panel recommended funds be pushed to provide a single fee that covers all charges. What you see is what you pay.
'Impossible', the fund managers have said, as they cannot predict what trading and other costs will be before they arise.
They may find that few people share that view. It's hard to think of any other businesses that charge in this way. Most are required to give a price and stick to it - if they want to run a profit then it's in their interest to push their own costs lower.
At the very least, fund managers should provide a more realistic annual management charge. As the one definite ongoing charge that investors are shown, the AMC tends to have supremacy in sales conversations and fund literature. Investors just don't give estimated costs the same credence.
If the AMC consistently underestimates the total costs of a fund by a large amount - total costs are thought to be typically 100 per cent higher than the AMC - then the AMC should rise so that less has to be added later.
The Investment Management Association, representing fund managers, has put forward proposals for it's members to publish a cash figure of costs, based on the previous year. This would be progress, but still means investors don't know what they'll pay.
I suspect that there are many fund managers - free marketeers to a man - who know that the system provides little incentive for them to compete on price because the consumer bases their buying decision on fees that rarely resemble the actual price they pay.
They will be perfectly aware that the current way of charging is deeply unbalanced in favour of them, and against their investors. 
If they are to rise to challenge of looking after the life savings and retirements of many more ordinary people, investment companies should recognise that more will be expected of them.
They will be under greater pressure to justify the fees they take, and may even have to get used to taking less in the long term.

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Help to Buy fears recede as scheme accounts for fraction of purchases

Four out of five purchases have been made by first time buyersMortgage guarantee helping more buyers outside London and SEBy Ed Monk for MailOnline
Published: 09:44 GMT, 29 May 2014 | Updated: 11:09 GMT, 29 May 2014

Help to Buy mortgage guarantees accounted for just 1.3 per cent of house purchases since they were launched last October, the Treasury confirmed today, cooling fears the controversial scheme is contributing to a house price bubble.

In the first six months of the scheme, 7,313 purchases were completed with the support of Help to Buy guarantees out of more than 562,000 residential mortgage completions.

Purchases using the mortgage guarantee have grown every month since launch but the modest scale will take the wind out of calls to end the scheme because it is fuelling damaging house price growth.

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Home help: The Government claimed the figures today showed Help to Buy is not fuelling irresponsible borrowing.

The figures show that the mortgage guarantee is being taken up disproportionately more Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, the East of England, and the North West.

London and the South East account for 19 per cent of Help to Buy mortgage guarantee completions compared to 37 per cent of total mortgaged house purchases.

Some 60 per cent of the houses bought with the scheme have been under £150,000 - 4,422 out of 7,313. 82 per cent of Help to Buy mortgage guarantee purchases have been under £200,000.

Four out of five purchases have been made by first time buyers and most households using the scheme had a household income of between £20,001 and £50,000.

The Prime Minister David Cameron said: 'Home ownership is in our blood - it’s about aspiration, planning for the future and laying down roots.
Helping hand: Number of mortgage completions and value of guarantees, loans and properties from October 2013 to March 2014

'But we inherited a situation where for many people, buying a home seemed all but impossible - people who worked hard, had good jobs and could afford the monthly mortgage payments, but didn’t have the large deposit needed up front. For those without rich parents, the dream of home ownership remained just that: a dream. That is why we brought in Help to Buy.'

'Today, Help to Buy has helped thousands of hardworking people to buy a new home and crucially it is helping to increase the number of new homes being built around the country.'

Help to Buy has two parts. The first part provides loans of up to 20 per cent of a property's value to buyers of new homes. This enables them to get cheaper mortgage rates with just a 5 per cent deposit.

The second part is more controversial as it can apply to any home, not just newly built ones. The second part of Help to Buy is a Government guarantee that protects lenders of low deposit mortgages from losses of up to 15 per cent of a property's value.

Both elements of Help to Buy are limited to property purchases for £600,000 and under.

The figures today confirm the value of the guarantee so far is £153million, while the overall value of loans supported by the scheme is £1.048billion. These mortgages have been used to buy properties worth £1.109billion.
Starter homes: Completions by property value from October 2013 to March 2014

Jeremy Duncombe, Director at Legal & General Mortgage Club, said: 'Despite calls for the scheme to be reined in, these figures show that Help to Buy is aiding those who most need it. The majority of applications have come from outside London and from first time buyers, in areas where the local housing markets have not rebounded as strongly as in the capital.

'That so few applications are coming from London shows that Help to Buy is not the sole reason for the booming house prices here. The real issue that needs to be addressed is the lack of housing supply and the prevalence of cash buyers.'

The schemes have become controversial as house price rises have accelerated in the past year.

House prices rose eight per cent in the year to March 2014, with the average home now costing £252,000, according to the latest Office for National Statistics figures release last week.

That average hides wide regional differences. House values in London are up 17 per cent in 12 months, with the average property in the capital worth £459,000.

The steep rise has given rise to fears of a bubble that could pop, leaving recent buyers facing negative equity and damaging consumer confidence and the wider economy.
Regional breaskdown: Mortgage completions, mean property value, first time buyers and mean borrower income, by region.

The Government has played down the impact of the scheme on house prices, arguing that Help to Buy makes up only a small percentage of total transactions and generally in areas where house price gains have been modest.

However, it has made clear that any curbs to Help to Buy would be dictated by the Bank of England. Bank Governor Mark Carney said last month that it had a range of tools available to slow the housing market if it thought price rises posed a risk to the economy.

He told Sky News’s Murnaghan programme in May. ‘We could limit amounts of certain types of mortgages that banks could undertake, we could provide advice ... on changing the terms of Help to Buy.’
Where's the help?: Location and value of completed mortgages supported by the Help to Buy: mortgage guarantee by Local Authority, UK.

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ED MONK: David Cameron is claiming a victory over energy prices - but has he delivered on his promise?

By Ed Monk for MailOnline
Published: 16:32 GMT, 20 November 2012 | Updated: 16:50 GMT, 20 November 2012


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Prime Minister David Cameron told MPs on 17 October that he would ensure customers got the best price - but do his changes do that?

A triumphant David Cameron today tweeted: 'My promise to ensure energy customers get the lowest tariff is being delivered, despite Labour saying it couldn’t be done.'

But has he actually delivered on that promise?

Under plans launched by the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC), each supplier will be restricted to only four tariffs for electricity and four for gas.

They will have to offer a 'standard variable' tariff and a fixed term, fixed price deal. They can also offer two other tariffs that are targeted in different ways - the DECC gave the example of a tariff for renewable energy.

The new rules require that customers be moved onto one of the four tariffs, and that customers on each must get the same price.

Any customers that are on dozens of less competitive, outdated deals, will get moved to the best available for the particular tariff they are on.

The changes are based on reforms put forward by regulator Ofgem last month. It too had recommended limiting deals to four simplified tariffs.

But the Government is claiming that its reforms today go even further. It says they also reflect a pledge made by David Cameron in Prime Minister's Questions on 17 October to legislate 'so that energy companies have to give the lowest tariff to their customers'.

That promise caused chaos at the time. It seemed to go beyond the Ofgem proposals that the DECC and new energy minister Ed Davey were sticking to and energy companies insisted they knew nothing of the Prime Minister's plan.

A requirement for suppliers to 'give the lowest tariff to their customers' would mean the end of  companies offering better prices to those who seek them out through online price comparisons.

The benefit of such a change would not be that prices are forced lower - the lowest prices would subsequently rise if they were offered to everyone - but rather that a supplier would have to cut prices for all its customers if it wanted to compete.

Currently, companies are able to use these online tariffs to tempt new customers with lower prices, while the majority of customers languish on 'standard tariffs' that are more expensive and for which there is less incentive for suppliers to compete on price.

These customers have shown they are reluctant to switch, so suppliers can keep their prices higher while they sweep up news customers with better deals. It is the kind of 'predatory pricing' that former energy secretary Chris Huhne promised the Lib Dem conference would be tackled.

The PM's words last month raised hopes that this flaw in the market would be corrected and suppliers would have to compete on price for all customers, not just internet-savvy ones that know where to find the best deals.

A spokesman quoted at the time of the Prime Minister's announcement said: 'People are encouraged to switch but many people don't. It is only a minority of people who switch, so lots of people are not benefiting from that market, particularly vulnerable people who are less likely to switch deals.'

If the intention of the changes today was to ensure those vulnerable customers benefit from the switching market, they have failed.

There is nothing in the new rules forcing suppliers to remove cheaper deals where new customers apply online. They can simply offer an online deal as one of the four tariff options and make this cheaper.

If a customer is already on such a deal they will continue to benefit - but the far greater number of 'standard tariff' customers will simply be shifted to a new 'standard variable' rate that is still more expensive.

Overall, these changes are positive as they will remove some of the complexity faced by customers and give them better information about the benefits of switching.

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ED MONK: Why grown up customer service still tops current account bells and whistles - and why Sky really is the limit

By Ed Monk for MailOnline
Published: 15:20 GMT, 12 August 2014 | Updated: 09:02 GMT, 13 August 2014


Anyone looking for interest on their savings to beat inflation knows that actual savings accounts are not the place to look.

Visit your bank in search of a half-decent rate and you'll likely be told to forget savings accounts and instead take out one of the new breed of all-singing, all-dancing current accounts. The Santander 123, Nationwide's FlexDirect and the Club Lloyds Account are notable examples.

Among their various bells and whistles, these accounts offer in-credit interest rates above dedicated savings accounts - particularly straightforward easy-access savings accounts.

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Different animal: First Direct has made its reputation on customer service.

Used properly, the combination of in-credit interest, rewards and other perks can make such accounts excellent value, even though you may have to pay a monthly fee.

I do not wish to undermine these new accounts - they represent one of the few battlegrounds on which banks are willing to actually compete with each other to offer customers a good deal.

But a recent experience reminded me that the theoretical gains these accounts offer do not always outweigh the less flashy selling points of other accounts, such as customer service.

Like many other personal finance journalists, I bank with First Direct. Perhaps it's because we've heard so many stories of customers struggling with their bank over the years that we place a higher value on service - and First Direct is the heavyweight champion of service.

In completely shunning automated telephone lines, and by staffing its call centres with people who can make decisions beyond a set script, First Direct is a genuinely different prospect from the other banks.
 
Although this doesn't just mean less frustration when you need to contact them. I believe it has saved me cold, hard cash too.

I recently managed to incur £25 of overdraft charges on my First Direct account thanks to my habit of spending up to my free overdraft limit, but then staying just shy of it by transferring savings in as needed to keep me in the black (or at least the free bit of the red).

Finger-waggers may lecture me on why this is an accident waiting to happen, but it generally works for me. I save an ambitious amount at the start of the month and claw back only what's necessary at the end.

But things went awry a few months back when, having checked my balances a few days before pay day, I believed I would be OK without transferring any savings. What I did not see were a list of forgotten debit card payments lurking, about to be paid out but not yet reflected in my balance.

The upshot was that I exceeded my limit by £15 for a day, before being paid and taken back into the black. The automatic charges kicked in and a £25 fee was levied.

I called the bank to question the charge on the grounds that I had taken all reasonable steps to ensure I would not break the limit, and had only done so because I could not see the pending payments.

The First Direct person explained that the information on my available balance - reflecting payments due to be taken - was in fact visible online, albeit not in a very accessible place. Nevertheless, they accepted that an honest mistake had been made and were able to cut the charges by half - as much as they could do there and then.

Happier, but not completely happy, I called again to see if the remaining charges could be removed. Following a similarly grown-up conversation, they were and I was signed up to a text message service that will remind me when my limit is looming.

Two phone calls had saved me £25.

Whether or not one of the other major banks would have been able to accommodate me as easily is hard to say - but I do doubt it. How long would it have taken me to earn that £25 through extra interest or rewards, I wonder?

I have just concluded my annual round of brinkmanship with the crack negotiators at Sky.
Laughing last: Sky's offer looked good at first - but meant big price rises later.

Why, given all the evidence of failing diplomacy throughout the world's trouble spots, has the UN not sent in the Sky call centre team to get the desired results? They are masters!

I had been quite pleased with myself last year when I signed on for broadband and sports TV for £45 a month. But victory was fleeting.

Six months in and it turned out many of the things that I had assumed we were paying for were actually free extras granted to us for a limited period. As each offer expired, our monthly bill crept up.

Line rental had been half price but wasn't any more. Particularly painful was finding the HD versions of our sport channels had, in fact, been an act of generosity by Sky all along, and that we must now pay to continue receiving.

They were switched off without warning, Vladimir Putin-style.

Already hooked, what else could I do but hand over more money - 'Watch Bayern Munich versus Real Madrid in normal definition? Are you mad? Where do I sign?'

A year in and our monthly bill had reached a frankly funny £83 a month. £45 to £83 in one year, for exactly the same service.

Attempting to wrestle this down, I called with the usual empty threat to leave. They could offer to take something off my bill but I would, naturally, be required to sign up for another 18 months.

Various theoretical packages and prices were thrown at me. I spent half an hour in a 'live chat' on the internet with someone/thing called Dinseh that I'm not convinced wasn't a robot.

Any offer made had to be agreed there and then, making comparison with rivals next to impossible. Every new call meant the previous more generous offer evaporated. They wouldn't even tell me how much it would cost if I wanted to leave before 18 months - simply impossible to work out, they said.

Checkmate, and I signed for £70 a month. I'll learn my lesson one day - maybe next year.


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ED MONK: The Bank's lesson on mortgage debt and growth might be stating the obvious - but it's vital we take heed

By Ed Monk for MailOnline
Published: 13:09 GMT, 17 September 2014 | Updated: 11:27 GMT, 18 September 2014

Economists have a great talent for explaining with tables, graphs and analysis things that the rest of us just know intuitively to be true.

For example, the Bank of England's work this week that showed the build-up of household debt, mostly mortgages, prior to 2007 had made the subsequent recession deeper.

The more debt a household had, the Bank explained, the more they cut their spending when the tide turned.

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Bears and woods: The Bank of England's analysis may have stated the obvious - but it needed to be said.


The revelation was included in the Bank's quarterly bulletin. Perhaps next quarter the Bank will tackle bears, the woods and trends linking the two.

In fairness, it is the Bank's job to use hard data in this way to show what's going on in the economy, rather than relying on assumptions. Indeed, it pointed out that standard economic thinking assumes debt is not a determining factor in spending in general, making the Bank's contrary analysis important.

After all, when the recession hit, few borrowers were actually forced to cut their general spending because they had to meet higher monthly mortgage payments. Interest rates at 0.5 per cent meant, for many, repayments fell.
Belt-tightening: The graph shows how households with higher debt to income ratios cut spending by more.

The point is that highly indebted households feel more vulnerable so cut back more drastically, whether they need to or not.

For a nation so hooked on buying ever-more expensive houses, and borrowing the money to do it, this is a worry. What happens when rates rise and these household have a genuine need to cut their spending because they have to hand more back to their lender each month?

Household spending drives two-thirds of GDP, so the Bank's policy has been to lighten the burden on indebted households with low rates. However, this encourages households to become more indebted, and indebted households cut their spending by disproportionately more when credit is harder to come by.

This is the central tension in the economy. We don't raise rates for fear of the damage it will do to households' spending power, yet in doing so we make the potential hit to spending even bigger when rates do rise.

The Bank has identified the problem and has introduced measures to curb high-risk borrowing. However, the limits have been set at levels that give UK households still more room to borrow.  

Our current household debt levels are below their peak, but not by much. With wages stubbornly refusing to take off, the household debt-to-income ratio will rise as the flow of mortgages returns - and note, more of those mortgages will still be being repaid after 30, 35 and even 40 years.

As the Bank's analysis tells us, the cost of borrowing more and more to buy houses will be a more sluggish and sickly economy for decades to come.

Like thousands of others, I have just been notified that a fixed-term energy deal I signed up to a year or more ago is about to expire.
Not just any energy: M&S Energy won't put customers automatically on to their best deals.

My supplier, M&S Energy, wrote to me and explained I have the option of falling onto its standard tariff, which costs much more, or a new fixed-term deal which is cheaper.

Great, I thought, the cheap one please, and I rang Scottish and Southern Energy, which provides M&S Energy tariffs, to confirm my choice.

However, confirming in a phone call was not possible. It would require a further letter to be sent to me, included with which would be a slip of paper I needed to sign and then send back.

In an age when we can pay vast sums of money instantly online and over the phone without a signature, SSE adopts the same system my primary school used in the 1980s to get parents' permission for school trips.

This, I was told was, was necessary because I would be entering a new contract.

Maybe so. It also happens to create a series of pesky barriers that will prevent a sizeable chunk of customers in my position from confirming their choice of a cheaper deal.

More fool them, you may say, and it is, but this type of obstruction and hassle is exactly what is preventing the domestic energy market from functioning properly.

No matter how many times people are told they will save money by switching, only a tiny proportion of us do it. It is up to regulators and the government to come up with reforms so that consumers get a decent deal despite their inertia.

David Cameron, of course, tried to do this when he promised to make energy suppliers 'give the lowest tariff to their customers'. It was a very good idea.

Unfortunately his promise was not matched by the fudged reforms that Ofgem then came up with, which required only that suppliers put customers on the best tariff 'of their choosing'.

The real cheapest deals require a new choice to be made, and a new contract, and this means suppliers have a convenient get out from passing on their best rates.

Proper regulation would require suppliers to automatically shift customers at the end of one fixed-term tariff - customers who, after all, have already made the choice to go to a cheaper deal - to the replacement deal that follows it.

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Green savings from 'smart' meters may or may not arrive - but accurate bills could be an even bigger prize

By Ed Monk for MailOnline
Published: 11:35 GMT, 15 July 2014 | Updated: 11:35 GMT, 15 July 2014


Imagine that instead of paying for your weekly shop at the supermarket checkout, you walked out of the store without paying anything and then took a guess at how much you spent on average and paid that direct from your bank account each month.

You might build huge debts, or credits, with the supermarket over months or even years as you over or underspent, and these would have to be corrected in large, one-off payments that can be called in a short notice.

The potential for huge errors to build up is obvious, which is why it would be a silly way to buy your fruit and veg.

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Smart Elec: The Government is selling its smart meter plan on it the savings households will make.

Yet this is how millions of us pay for another of our essential bills, gas and electricity, and with exactly these consequences.

We report this week that complaints about energy companies are at record levels and growing. Gripes are mostly about inaccurate bills and the torture of dealing with customer service departments to put them right.

The comparison with supermarkets is only so useful, of course. You can't normally buy energy before you use it (where would you put it?) and the infrastructure needed to supply your gas and electricity needs to be in place and maintained the whole time, and needs to be paid for the whole time. It's a very different business.

But it is no coincidence that the supermarkets, whose customers know exactly how much they spend and cross the road to a rival if they don't get a good deal, compete fiercely with one another while the energy suppliers, whose customers sleepwalk for months paying an amount only loosely connected to the actual cost, do not.

Regulators have been trying for years to understand why we don't switch supplier more given the savings to be made, particularly for those who have never switched. The Competition and Markets Authority is at last examining this apparent failure in the market.

The fact that households rarely see and feel the cost of their energy directly is surely part of the explanation. Not to mention the substantial barrier to switching that is created when someone has a large debt to their supplier that they must clear before they can leave.

Enter smart meters - the electronic boxes fitted in homes that promise to tell you exactly how much you are spending and generate bills that reflect exactly your use. In a smart metered world, your energy bill will be as accurate as your mobile phone bill - no more estimates, no more shock debts.

I first started writing about smart meters in 2007. Back then they were the future and seven years on, they still are.
How it works: This diagram explains how the new smart meters will work.

Up to now, the devices have been discussed among interested industry watchers and few others, but that is about to change. A plan is now in motion that eventually see smart meters installed in every home, and opponents to it are queuing up.

The little white boxes are accused of all sort of things. I found this whole website dedicated to the health risks of smart meters - 'The "Smart" Meter is #1 in terms of devastation to our nervous system!'.

There have also been questions about the reliability of the technology and its suitability for different types of homes.

But most concern surrounds the cost, and who pays it. The Department of Energy and Climate Change admits the plan will eventually cost £11billion, including £200 for each box and its installation.

This will be met by the large suppliers, which will then pass the cost onto households through higher bills. That means we all pay.

The Department for Energy and Climate Change has argued its case on energy-saving grounds - that families will save £18.5billion over twenty years, mostly because they will be nudged to cut their energy use when they can see exactly what it is costing them.

This sounds vague and implausible and has predictably attracted the ire of the anti-green lobby, which has already branded the plan an EU-driven sop to the eco-mentalists.

It would've been much better to argue that accurate and up-to-date bills are essential if we want to finally get this market to work properly. Smart meters should provide this.

The set-up costs of such as system will always be large, but so could be the rewards. Who knows, maybe one day you will be able to switch supplier instantly through your smart meter at the touch of a button. British Gas is the cheapest right now, let's go with them, but if nPower cuts prices for the winter, we'll switch back, and it's instant.

Energy companies simply do not face that pressure to compete at the moment.

Instead of allowing the suppliers to argue that this is an imposed cost that they have no choice to pass on in full, the Government and its regulators should tell these giant companies that billing people properly is an essential cost of their business that they must absorb as they do any other investment.  

Perhaps imposing a rule that anyone undercharged for their energy would not have to pay the difference, while those overcharged get their money back at a punitive rate of interest, would provide motivation for the suppliers to get bills right.

The cost of smart meters, or any other system to make bills more accurate, will inevitably be passed on but, if they make the market work properly, companies will have to keep this cost as low as possible or see customers walk away to a cheaper rival.

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House sales back at 2007 levels but market levels off with mortgage restrictions set to dampen buying fervour

Residential property transactions hit 109,580 in JuneFigures yet to reflect slowdown caused by changes to the mortgage market By Ed Monk for MailOnline
Published: 14:07 GMT, 22 July 2014 | Updated: 15:47 GMT, 22 July 2014

More homes were bought and sold in June than in any month since the end of 2007, before the credit crunch took its full toll on the property market, figures showed today.

HM Revenue & Customs said the number of residential property transactions hit 109,580 in June, a figure equalled in November last year but not exceeded since November 2007.

However, the official figures also pointed to a levelling off in house sales this year. On a seasonally adjusted basis, the June total was 0.2 per cent lower than in May.

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Moving the market: House sales are at recent highs, but have leveled off this year.

Long-term data shows that home sales had been running above 160,000 a month at points prior to the financial crisis, but plummeted to lows around 40,000 once the bank lending seized up and the recession pushed buying out of reach for many.

Recent peaks in residential sales have come around tax changes. A stamp duty 'holiday' that ended in December 2009 drove sales higher, and there was another, smaller, peak and trough in March and April 2012 due to the ending of stamp duty holiday for first time buyers.

The figures from HMRC represent transactions once stamp duty has been paid. This means they are unlikely to cover the period from April onwards that has seen a slowdown caused by changes to the mortgage market, as only a fraction of these sales are likely to have been completed in time to be counted in the numbers.
Leveling off: Residential sales have recovered in the past 18 months.

The Mortgage Market Review required lenders to probe applicants' finances more closely, including to see if they could withstand higher interest rates in the future. This has caused a slowdown in mortgage approvals.

Harder to measure is sentiment among buyers. The Bank of England has warned interest rates could rise sooner than some expect and has also introduced a measure to limit high loan-to-income borrowing to 15 per cent the loans a lender grants. The anticipation of slower price rises, or even falls, may be putting buyers off, according to experts.

Peter Rollings, chief executive of estate agents Marsh & Parsons, said: 'The UK property market is singing a different tune to that heard at the start of this year. The fierce competition for properties and unprecedented house price growth has subsided as a new wave of supply has come onto the market, stabilising price rises and restoring normality to trading conditions.
Peaks and troughs: Sales collapsed after the financial crisis hit in 2007, and remain at around two-thirds of their pre-crisis level.

'Both buyers and sellers alike are benefitting from this new calmness in the market, with a greater array of available property to choose from and slightly slower pace of activity making stepping onto the ladder or trading up a less daunting prospect.  

'The implementation of tighter lending criteria and affordability checks has lengthened the borrowing process and cooled the market during this transitional phase.'

Jonathan Hudson, founder of estate agent Hudsons Property, said: 'The property market is cooling but still strong. We are still achieving top prices but some of the urgency has subsided.

'Certain measures put in place, like the overseas buyers capital gains tax and potential interest rate rises have not really affected the market. However, tighter lending criteria have slowed increases and buyers are being more considered before offering. This is also allowing more property to reach the market, giving buyers more choice.'

Getting the right mortgage is essential to making sure buying a home is as affordable as possible.

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of options out there, so, as well as doing your own research, this is an occasion to search out expert opinion from a good mortgage broker.

First, read Mail Online's award-winning money section This is Money's regularly updated What next for mortgage rates? This outlines the current state of the market and highlights the current best buy deals.

Then also check the top mortgage deals on offer currently in our best buy mortgage tables, or click through by using our helpful table (right).

You should now be armed with some knowledge about what is on offer and you can use our True cost mortgage calculator to compare how different deals stack up.

You should also talk to a mortgage broker. There is no obligation to go through with their recommendation and so they may not end up actually arranging the mortgage for you, but they will be able to explain your options and help you to find the best deal.

Go a broker who offers advice from the whole market. Avoid brokers who offer a restricted service based on products from a limited number of lenders, and don't just simply go to your bank - unless you get lucky, you will be unlikely to find the best deal this way

This is Money has a carefully chosen partnership with mortgage broker London and Country. We have picked them because they offer a good service, with no upfront fees. Find about more about London & Country's fee free mortgage advice here.

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ED MONK: The payday loan party is finally over - now it's time to look back and ask 'what were we thinking?'

By Ed Monk for MailOnline
Published: 13:33 GMT, 9 October 2014 | Updated: 09:31 GMT, 11 November 2014
There will be plenty of sore heads for a while to come, but Britain's payday loans party is finally winding down.
There's good reason to believe that the controversial industry has now peaked and that there will be fewer payday loans from here on, with borrowers who are granted them better equipped to pay them back.
A crucial moment was reached last week when Wonga agreed to forget the debts of 330,000 borrowers because loans had been granted without establishing if they could be paid back.

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The party's over: Millions will have to live with the hangover of payday loans - and regulators should ask if they could have done more.
Even before that, Wonga, by far the largest payday lender, told its investors that it just wouldn't be the same business anymore. FCA regulation, which began in April and is getting tougher, means it won't grant as many loans and they won't be as profitable.
And Wonga's retreat is nothing compared to those of its competitors. Last year, when the 50 largest lenders were asked to show they were sticking to softer Office of Fair Trading rules, almost a third of them simply decided to shut up shop.
The FCA estimates that its tougher requirements will now put all but the largest lenders out of business. These firms can't stick to the rules and make money, it seems.
Payday lending, then, is on the way down but its rise and fall holds lessons for the authorities, and the rest of us too. As with all the worst hangovers, a period of self-reflection in necessary - what were we thinking?
It's hard not to conclude that regulators have been simply too complacent.
As far back as 2010, debt charities and individual MPs were reporting the stories of ordinary people coming to them having been caught in a trap of payday loans. One loan was taken to pay another, and enough money was handed over in fees and charges to have cleared the original debt, yet this remained untouched.

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That year the OFT looked at payday loans in a review of high-cost credit and made a series of recommendations that now look tissue-soft.
Government financial literacy programmes should mention payday loans, it said, while payday lenders should volunteer to list on a comparison website.
The Government should 'explore' whether paydays lenders could be made it include 'wealth warnings' on their ads.

Voluntary codes of conduct, the last refuge of all mis-behaving industries, were also suggested.
Meanwhile, proper price controls were rejected on what now look exceedingly shaky grounds.
The 2010 report includes the zinger that: 'The imposition of price controls in high-cost credit markets creates a risk for suppliers that they would generate lower profit levels.
'It would be reasonable to expect these suppliers to respond to the imposition of a price control by seeking to regain such lost profit by restricting the type and risk of consumers that they are willing to supply.'
And they say it like it's a bad thing.
Two years later and MPs had another chance to cap costs, but reforms were voted down. In a written answer to Parliament at the time Jo Swinson, Minister for Employment Relations and Consumer Affairs, said: 'We... recognise that a voluntary approach can deliver real improvements in consumer protection more quickly than Government regulation.'
It couldn't, and hundreds of thousands of payday loans were subsequently granted that should not have been.
Wong turn: Jo Swinson (left) predicted in 2012 that payday lenders such as Wonga would get their house in order without price controls.
Central to regulators' failure were assumptions that have proven to be disastrously wrong. One was that top-down restrictions should be avoided at almost any cost and that all problems can be solved as long as you get consumers more engaged.

To this end, solutions invariably focused on giving people more information and transparency so that they could then make better, more rational decisions.
This ignores the fact that people deciding to take a payday loan are not being rational, they are being tempted into instant gratification.
Wonga boasts on its website that 77 per cent of its borrowers could borrow via a credit card of bank overdraft if they wanted. But those take time and paperwork and possibly interacting with another person who may tell you the consequences of borrowing the money.
A payday loan is anonymous and almost instant so there is little opportunity for the rational part of the brain to kick in.
The truth is payday borrowers do not always need the money. Sometimes they just want it, and no amount of warnings or comparing of prices is going to dissuade them. This is a hard thing for the surveys and statistics of officialdom to take account of.
Another mistake was to fail to understand that lenders can get money back from almost anyone if they are allowed to dip into their bank account whenever they want.
A key defence used by the payday lenders has been to ask 'why would we lend to someone who can't pay us back?'. But continuous payment authorities have allowed them to take back what is owed no matter whether the borrower can afford to pay or not.
The Financial Ombudsman Service reports that a common theme of the complaints it sees are borrowers being unable to pay other essential bills after payday lenders have taken back their repayments.
These issues are finally being addressed and, if policed properly, it is reasonable to think the new rules will bring the worst excesses payday lending to an end.
A price cap, encompassing interest and fees, will mean borrowers never pay back more than twice the sum they borrow, and lenders will be limited to using CPAs just twice. The comparison service that was recommended on a voluntary basis in 2010 has today been made compulsory.
These measures were unthinkable just a few years ago. Untold thousands have been granted inappropriate payday loans in the time its taken the authorities to wake up.

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Can buyers expect money they save on stamp duty to be swallowed by rising prices?

By Ed Monk for MailOnline
Published: 07:30 GMT, 5 December 2014 | Updated: 09:21 GMT, 5 December 2014
Yesterday, less than 24 hours after the Chancellor announced his overhaul to stamp duty, I put in a call to the giant property websites that aggregate estate agents' listings.
I wanted to know whether they would be able to provide figures to show changes in buyer and seller behaviour as the changes take hold.
'We've been watching the numbers on just that', one told me. 'I imagine we'll see a trend in a day or two.'
That the effect will be felt so quickly is perhaps no surprise.
Buyers and sellers of any property are keenly aware of factors affecting its place in the market, including the effect the outgoing stamp duty thresholds had.
Removing them has changed the playing field and I imagine there were plenty of phone calls to estate agents on Wednesday night as those involved in transactions came home and digested the news.
In general, the stamp duty changes are expected to push prices higher. 
However, it will not be as direct as that. Sellers will still have to price competitively and many buyers are likely to put money saved into raising bigger deposits, rather than simply adding it on to prospective purchase prices.
The main effect will be to remove the huge distortion the old stamp duty system imposed near the thresholds - and this is where prices will most likely move upwards.
Some 98 per cent of all buyers will pay less tax under the new system. (Check the new rates in the table at the bottom of this page.)
It will shave thousands off the up-front sum that buyers, particularly first-timers, will have to scrape together. That boosts demand.
But the impact will be more dramatic at certain points on the price scale.
Particularly affected, of course, are those homes priced around the old stamp duty thresholds, where a higher rate kicked in on the entire value of the property as each line was crossed. Breaching one meant buyers faced handing over thousands in extra tax.
This chart, published by the Treasury as the Autumn Statement was made, illustrates what a mess it had been making of the market.
The line shows the number of transactions at each price point. The spikes before £125,000 and £250,000 show how reluctant buyers and sellers were to agree prices just above each jump in duty.

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The question now is - what happens to that line and the prices of transactions represented by the spikes?
It's logical to expect a more even distribution of prices as buyers no longer face these tax cliff edges. The most dramatic of these had been the jump from 1 per cent stamp duty at £250,000 to 3 per cent at £250,001.
Buyers crossing this line faced a trebling of their stamp duty bill - from £2,500 to more than £7,500.
A great number of transactions were bunched just below £250,000, with then a gap until you got to about £280,000 - presumably the point at which buyers began to feel they wouldn't be able to get what they wanted without paying the higher stamp duty rate.
Will the houses below £250,000 rise in price to fill the gap?
Tim Proctor, partner at George Proctor & Partners, an estate agents in Beckenham, in South East London, said: 'As agents, we explain to sellers that many buyers using the property websites will limit their search to properties up to £250,000, so as to avoid the extra tax. Quoting above this limits the numbers who will see your property.
'It used to be the case, some time ago, that terraced houses just wouldn't sell above £250,000 due to the stamp duty threshold. It took time for prices to rise enough that sellers would start to put terraced houses on at about £275k or £280k. When one did, more soon followed.
'With price rises in the past 18 months, that's now true of one-bed flats in Beckenham. With the thresholds now going, I imagine we'll see more sellers willing to try their one-beds on at £255k or £260k.'
If a trend emerges of sellers raising their price in this way, then buyers may find any tax they save is quickly eaten up by meeting higher asking prices, albeit that many will be able to spread this cost by paying it from a mortgage, rather than in cash up front.
It is worth remembering though that prices could also shift down as this distortion is removed. Sellers who previously would have sold at £260,000, also often opted to price at £270,000 or more, reasoning that they could not market their property so close to the threshold.
The one set of buyers looking at significantly higher tax bills are the 2 per cent of buyers purchasing properties above £937,500 - the point at which the new stamp duty system becomes more expensive than the old one.
If a tax cut can be expected to raise prices lower down, then a tax hike should be expected to keep a lid on them further up the scale.
The new rates have been set to be generally 'progressive', meaning those spending more, pay proportionately more tax too.
Yet one group faces a much tougher time under the new regime - tougher even than those buying further up the chain,
Those buying properties priced up to £2million face a whopping 41 per cent increase in the tax they'll pay versus the old system, according to specialist residential investment advisers LCP. This increase is on a par with that facing buyers of much more expensive properties (see table.)
HOW THE OLD REGIME COMPARES TO THE NEWPrice BandsAvg Old Avg New Avg SDLT ChangeThis is because these buyers would have just missed a jump in stamp duty from 4 per cent to 5 per cent under the old system, but now face the more punitive rates that apply on any values above £937,500.
It isn't the only anomaly under the new system. There is a small purple patch between £1million and £1.125million where buyers can make a saving to the tune of £5,750 under the new regime.
The new regime is immeasurable fairer for the vast majority and corrects some major distortions in the market - but expect some fun and games with property pricing as the market unwinds.
Who pays what? How the new stamp duty charges stack up


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Dez Bryant -- I've Been Betrayed

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Dez Bryant says he's been betrayed ... but he's not saying by whom ... or how. 

In the wake of rumblings that a tape exists showing Bryant doing something terrible ... a tape everyone's talking about but no one says they've seen ... Bryant went to Twitter to express his frustration. 

"I need to get me a real raw uncut tv show or something ... I can't continue to get betrayed like this."

It's the second time Bryant has addressed the rumors.

Last week, he posted another cryptic statement that reads ... "Just quit with the b.s. … It’s clear as day what's going on… I might need to do a exclusive interview about my life these past 5 years since the world is destined to know."

"I use to let people take advantage of my life now that I’m no longer allowing that to happen it seems to be a problem… I’m not ashamed of none of my past incidents because that’s what made me who I am today."

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MMA Star Josh Neer -- Gym Fight Under Investigation ... Says Iowa Athletic Commission

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The Iowa Athletic Commission has launched an investigation into the violent gym fight between pro MMA fighter Josh Neer and a social media heckler ... TMZ Sports has learned. 

As we previously reported, Neer -- who's had 51 pro fights -- invited the heckler over to his gym for a "full contact" fight earlier this week. The heckler accepted and Josh beat his ass. 

Footage of the fight went viral ... and officials at the state's athletic commission were among those who viewed the footage. 

TMZ Sports spoke with IAC Executive Director Joe Walsh (not THAT Joe Walsh)  who tells us his team is actively looking into the incident. 

"We are aware of the situation. I have our legal team taking a thorough look at our rules. We're checking to see if we have anything on the books that covers this."

Walsh says the commission doesn't usually have regulatory authority outside of the ring or octagon ... telling us they generally oversee "events, not what occurs in gyms."

Still, Walsh says, "We do have certain standards that our athletes must meet."

As for Neer, he's adamant he did nothing wrong.  

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Robert Griffin III -- My Smelly Cast Is On Display ... At Prestigious Medical School

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Where does a sweaty ankle cast get treated like a fine piece of art? A podiatry school ... 'cause that's exactly where Robert Griffin III's used cast -- auctioned off by the Redskins QB -- is on display behind glass. 

Temple University School of Podiatric Medicine student Rich Bruno ... a die hard Skins fan and lover of feet -- recently purchased the NFL star's stinky cast at auction for $1,522.  

Now ... Bruno tells TMZ Sports he's (temporarily) donated the item to his med school so it can be enjoyed by everyone. 

"I'd love to share it with my peers or anyone who shares my passion for podiatry and sports by displaying it in my school's clinic."

Besides helping in RG's recovery, the cast actually contains some valuable signatures from several Washington stars ... including DeSean Jackson and Pierre Garcon.  

And get this ... now that the school has had a taste of RG III's feet ... Bruno says they may try to build on their collection.  

"We may contact the team to try and have them release his X-Rays," Bruno said. "Something like that would be so fascinating and unique, I'd probably lose my mind."

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NFL Prodigy Sammie Coates -- Adorable NFL Advice ... From 12-Year-old Cancer Patient

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If Sammie Coates hopes to make it in the NFL, he better take the advice of his BFF ... who happens to be a really smart, really brave 12-year-old girl. 

As we previously reported, Coates has become very close with Kenzie Ray -- who's been ferociously battling leukemia -- and even customized his NFL Combine cleats with her name across the front. 

So, how did Kenzie react to the gesture? We spoke to K.R. and her mom Keisha on "TMZ Hollywood Sports" ... and it's just one of the best stories ever. 

But the best part ... Kenzie's got some sage words for her NFL-bound pal -- and it's just awesome. 

Check out "TMZ Hollywood Sports" weekdays at 6PM ET, 3PM PT on Reelz. 

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Metta World Peace -- Girls Are Smarter than Boys

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He coaches BOYS high school basketball ... and GIRLS high school basketball ... and when it comes to brains, Metta World Peace says it's all about the XX chromosomes. 

MWP is an assistant coach for both teams at Palisades Charter High School in Los Angeles -- and says he LOVES being able to pass on his basketball knowledge to the kids. 

But when it comes to absorbing that knowledge ... Metta says it's become perfectly clear -- the women are just smarter. 

Check out the clip ... 

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'American Sniper' Trial -- Dallas Cowboys Legend Attends Verdict

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When the judge announced that Eddie Ray Routh was found guilty of murdering "American Sniper" Chris Kyle Tuesday night ... his wife was comforted in court by a famous friend, ex-NFL star Jay Novacek. 

Novacek -- who was a 5-time Pro Bowl tight end for the Dallas Cowboys in the '90s -- has become close with Kyle's family ... and attended the reading of the verdict in the Erath County, TX courtroom. 

Jay's wife first met Chris' widow, Taya Kyle, at a gun convention not long after Chris was killed -- and the two have been dear friends ever since. The two families also attend the same church. 

Jay's wife has also praised Taya for being there for her after she was injured in a car accident last year. 

"I’m an only child, and she’s like the sister I never had.”

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'Remember the Titans' Coach -- Actor Will Patton Arrested for DUI

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The "Remember the Titans" actor who starred as a coach in the film -- and was NOT named Denzel Washington -- got busted for DUI in South Carolina.

Will Patton, who ended up being Denzel's assistant coach in the classic football flick ... was arrested Tuesday night in Isle of Palms, SC. He was released on $997 bond.

Patton played Coach Bill Yoast in 'Titans' -- and 10-year-old Hayden Panettiere played his daughter. He also starred in "Armaggedon" and "Gone in 60 Seconds."

Patton's hometown is Charleston ... not far from Isle of Palms. He'll be back in court next month to face the DUI. 

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