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Virgin is planning to take over Northern Rock, it has been claimed.
Richard Branson's company is apparently in talks with a consortium of investors from the US and Middle East. This group could then buy into the bank, which has been in financial crisis since September, the Times reports.
The newspaper said Virgin would not formally bid for control but buy shares for it's investor group, eventually planning to take over the day-to-day running of the business.
UK house prices declined in September for the second consecutive month in response to decreasing demand, said the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Rics).
According to research, 14.6 per cent more chartered surveyors reported a decline rather than a rise in house prices, making it the quickest decline since September 2005.
Surveyors in East Anglia, the Midlands and Wales reported the largest price falls.
Nationwide has called for greater control within the whole of the finance industry.
Following the Resolution Foundation's announcement that price comparison websites should have a voluntary code of practice, Nationwide says said such a code should also apply to banks and building societies.
The building society proposed that the code should include displaying long-term benefits and costs of financial products, rather than just highlighting initial offers that "fail to deliver the promised value".
Research by Five Live and BBC's Panorama shows that 70 per cent of all homes recently repossessed were bought with sub-prime mortgages.
Sub-prime mortgages are aimed at lenders with a bad credit rating and according to the BBC make up eight per cent of the total UK mortgage market.
The Bank of England's monetary policy committee (MPC) is due to make a decision on the base rate this week.
MPC meetings are held in the first week of every month and the committee decides whether to raise, lower or freeze the interest based on economic considerations.
Last month, the MPC kept the base rate at 5.75 per cent, but the preceding 12 months saw five rate rises.
The recent credit crisis should not mean that people are excluded from mortgage borrowing, a financial services advisor has said.
However, people with poor credit histories should expect to pay more interest, according to Zen Financial Services.
Spokesman Mike Pendergast says it is rare for someone to be "turned away completely" by every lender.
Faced with the uncertainty of fluctuating interest rates and a recent credit crisis, most homeowners would opt for a fixed-rate mortgage if they were forced to choose a new deal tomorrow, according to the latest research.
Abbey asked a sample of homeowners what sort of deals they would plump for if they were required to re-jig their finances in the next 24 hours.
Just 18 per cent said they would take a variable or tracker product, given the unstable state of the market at present.
Recent economic conditions have meant that the debt landscape is changing, according to one debt charity.
Credit Action, a provider of impartial debt advice, says that there has been a shift away from unsecured debts towards secured debts.
Unsecured debt usually takes the form of credit card borrowing and loans that are not charged against any of the borrowers assets.
The Bank of England's monetary policy committee (MPC) was unanimous in its decision to freeze the interest rate earlier this month.
All nine members of the MPC agreed that it was best to hold off varying the interest rate in the face of a looming credit crisis, as signalled by the collapse of the US subprime mortgage sector.
withdraw their savings is proof of how social lending is a better system, according to one industry operator.
With social lending, people arrange to borrow from or lend money to each other at an agreed rate, usually via a website.
According to one such website, Zopa, one of the main benefits is the fact that there is complete transparency in the transaction.
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