Myvesta UK Articles

The following news item was noticed today with disgust:

"Northern Rock is to more than double the number of people who work in its debt management arm, according to a document seen by the BBC.

The internal memo said the recently nationalised bank had the equivalent of 176 full time workers in the division at the end of April. But this number is set to increase to 444 by the end of March next year, the memo reportedly said.

What that debate made clear is that British creditors wanted to arbitrarily set thresholds and hurdles for consumers to cross in order to get access to the binding powers of the IVA. At the time many were in an uproar. Insolvency Practitioners were beside themselves, regulators were perplexed and trade bodies were running for cover.

After much chest beating and legal opinions, you know what happened, absolutely nothing.  Yet, some banks make some really dumb investment decisions and what does the FSA do, put new powers and whistleblower regulations in place.

2008 is not looking like a good year for consumers carrying debt in the UK. All theforcast signs says people should get out of debt as fast as possible to avoid severe financial pain heade across the British Isles.

The poor Individual Voluntary Arrangement (IVA) in the UK has been taking a beating in the last twelve months but new worries are afoot. Between the creditors hijacking this debt relief solution that falls under the control of the Insolvency Service, other creditors refusing to accept payments in an IVA and now this, we'll have to have some pity on the IVA.

Interesting announcement just out about banks and IVA providers have come to an agreement on IVAs. Somehow I don't think it's really over.

Frankly I’m getting a bit sick of people blaming misselling of IVAs as a problem of greedy commercial IVA providers.

You see while people keep using this phrase, what does it really mean and how can we regulate against IVA mis-selling.

There seems about as many ways of spelling misselling as their is of problems occurring in the IVA process.

With banks suffering major losses as a result of the subprime mess, cardholders carrying balances could be an easy target for immediate cash injections to the bank.

So I was just reviewing a look back at the success of Chapter 13 bankruptcy n the United States following tougher repayment legislation and bankruptcy reform in 2005. The results will surprise you.

The record indicates that Timothy Hardman had contacted Debt Matters for an Individual Voluntary Arrangement (IVA) in an attempt to deal with his money troubles. While Mr. Hardman had been advised that an IVA was possible at that time, a solution that would have allowed him to keep control of his assets and avoid bankruptcy, life dealt him a cruel blow.

Our friends at MasterCard are working on the purchase transporter using technology from Star Trek but until that is ready to release we’ll just have to assimilate the new PayPass card.