14/06/2014 Your Money

Now on BBC News, this week's Your Money with Declan Curry.

Hello and welcome to Your Money, your weekly guide to making the most

of your cash, here every weekend on BBC News television, available

Free money to pay for double glazing or a new boiler.

We'll tell you who can get it and how to apply for it.

Credit unions receive high profile backing and are seen as better

alternative to payday loans, but how good a deal do they really offer?

And we'll be looking at the range of new protections for consumers,

It is the height of summer, but if you want the government to pay for a

new boiler or double glazing, now is the time to act. Some households in

England and Wales could claim up to ?7,000 to make their homes more

energy efficient. Brian Horne is from the

Energy Saving Trust, a charity which offers independent advice on how to

use less energy and cut bills. This is the Green Deal. This is the

second ago ministers have had at this. What is on offer? What is on

offer is a grants to help you with the cost for energy efficiency, such

as boilers and insulation. You can get up to ?7,000. Yes, that is the

only amount you will get. If you do not have a solid wall, there is not

much, but there is still money on offer for other households. The

government says it is a big pot of money but it is first`come,

first`served. It is quite a large pot of money compared to what has

been spent. This is not money that you have to pay back? Nope. It is a

grant. Who can get it? It is open to households in England and Wales.

There is a similar scheme in Scotland but it is not the same. You

need the right insulation measures to have the recommended by the bout

in order to apply for it. That is going to be the catch, that you need

to do the work first before you can get the money back, and a lot of

this work can be expensive. Well that puts people off? It is a

cashback. You install the measures and claimed the money back, but it

gets paid back within ten days or so. You still have to the money up

front. Or pay for it. And those are some of the schemes there are.

Perhaps there are parallel schemes that allow you to get a hold of the

money. Talk us through the process. If you decide that you are going to

put in fresh insulation in the loft, what is your starting point? First

of all, you need an energy performance certificate that is less

than two years old, and that has to recommend improvements that you want

to make. Then you find the disturbed installers or providers who are

impaired to do the work, then you apply for a voucher and get the

money. That is the critical first stage. And who does the assessing?

Ed will either be a domestic energy assessor or a green deal assessor.

Many households are ready have energy performance certificates, but

not all. Can you get anyone to do the work? They have to be a Green

Deal installer or provider. ;`) very much. `` thank you very much.

For more information on the Green Deal generally, you can visit

or in England and Wales, phone the Energy Saving Advice Service, 0300

123 1234. That will cost up to 10p a minute on a landline, up to 40p a

minute on mobiles. Lines open Saturday until 2pm, Monday to

Friday, from 9am to 8pm. In Scotland it's a different number,

Home Energy Scotland on 0808 808 2282. That's free from landlines, up

to 40p a minute on mobiles. Lines open until 5pm on Saturday; Monday

to 40p a minute on mobiles. Lines open until 5pm on Saturday, Monday

to Friday, 8am to 8pm. The Green Deal is not available in Northern

You will have seen that the Bank of England's top boss may not wait

until next year to cut interest rates up. The financial company

which specialises in utterly savers who live off the interest says it is

about time. I do not think that is one of the utterly savers that they

specialise in `` specialise in on the screen. It would be music to the

ears of so many people over 50 who rely on the savings of income

and... If interest rates do rise earlier than expected, he will do it

because he wants to cool down the housing market by making mortgages

more X than the, but there are fears that they could become more

expensive for homeowners who might not be able to keep up with their

mortgage payments. The resolution foundation which looks at low`paid

families said last month that 1.1 million already have an home loans,

and their repayments of a lot more than one third of their income. ``

repayments and the credit reference company says

this weekend that a rise in the core interest rates to just 2% would put

the average repayment for a new mortgage up to ?13 per month, double

what homeowners say they can comfortably afford. We will get some

advice on how to beat the rise in interest rates in next week's

programme. The Archbishop of Canterbury loves them, Camilla the

Duchess of Cornwall is a member of one, credit unions. What did you

think I was talking about? They say they can help people manage their

finances and they are cheaper than payday loans, but only one in 50

people use one, so why aren't they more popular?

But some's shop workers are amongst the least well`paid in the country,

with many earning less than ?10 an hour. To prevent them having to

borrow from payday lenders, retailers are launching a new credit

union which could benefit for a million people. Those providing the

cash include a former participant in Dragon's Dan. It is a cancer on our

society, payday lenders. There is a requirement out there. At the

moment, we are seeing payday lenders charging up to 17,000% APR just to

lend someone a couple of hundred pounds. It is ridiculous. Despite

such high`profile support, credit unions are not widely popular. Even

in South Wales, where levels of need are high, all 2% of the population

uses them. One reason is that even though a members can borrow cheaply,

savings rates are poor. Typically, savers only find out what their rate

of return will be when the dividend is declared at the end of the year

all stop often, this same savers could actually make twice as much

money simply by putting it in a current account. So who in their

right minds would put their money into a credit union like this one?

The answer is people like Kate and her family. She has been saving and

borrowing with a credit union for 15 years. Until we told her, she did

not know what rate of return she was getting, but she is not concerned

about it. Overall, the benefits to me are not in that return, they are

the fact that I know the money is being used to support other families

that need it more. The return you got on your savings last year was

actually 0.25%, does that surprise you or were you? No. `` or were you.

Perhaps it should, but there are other benefits. Her credit union

agrees that savings rates have to improve if there is to be better

take up. Since the change in the law, this one has been one of the

few to introduce fixed rates. When they did, savers came flocking. It

was a tremendous experience for us and gave us a lot more options. All

of the sudden we have the capital we needed to lend out and grow the

credit union. And that is a lesson for credit unions across the

country. They can become more popular, but only by working harder

to attract the savers they need. You could be in for a shock if you

commit a motoring offence behind the wheel, because there is a plan for a

big rise in fines at Medecins courts in England and Wales. Here are some

of the proposed changes. Fines for speeding on a motorway could go up

from 10,000 `` 2000 ?500 to ?10,000. Driving without a helmet could incur

a ?2000 fine, and the cycle racing that is unauthorized could see a

fine of ?800. Another offence, or sale of alcohol to a drunk person,

don't know weather it produced up to that in, but the fine could be

?4000. `` don't know why the producer put that in. The post

office and Marks Spencer have all launched new current accounts

recently. Virgin Money is expected to follow suit. This week, Tesco got

into the act, but does it give us a better deal? It also pays interest

if you pay in more than ?750 a month. But experts say some other

accounts, like those at the TSP on a nationwide, may pay you more in

interest. If you are one of the many waiting for a new passport and you

are worried you might not be able to go on holiday, you may not get much

Cindy from air travel insurance company. The trade company for the

insurer says lessees will generally not pay out if you have to cancel

your holiday because sharp passport was late. One in Scherer has been in

touch with us to say it will pay refunds to people waiting for their

passwords that are passports. The we are getting more rights when

shopping online. The cooling off period has been extended to 14 days.

Companies will not be able to sneak in extras for insurers by telling us

unless we opt out. There is no surcharge for paying by credit card.

You will not be able to be charged anymore. And retails will not be

able to charge more than a local rate for helpline numbers. ``

retailers. We have been chomping to talk about this. The phone numbers,

I noticed a lot of discussion on Twitter about this, that these

numbers were supposed to be scrapped by now but still have lots of

companies using them. That is right. These regulations, the basic

principle is it should be no more expensive to contact a company than

it is for you to ring a neighbour. What we've seen is companies have

come up with a plethora of different, normally very expensive

numbers to ring them on. What these regulations say is they must use

numbers of local rate. The trouble is for some people, they may find

the wait for five numbers are included in date `` they've may find

the 0845 numbers are included in their phone bill. The principle is a

sound one. Especially for the big retailers who have departments that

know about this. They should be doing a lot better than having

expensive numbers on the website. Should this change have happened

already? They have had the notice and the rules came in yesterday. The

companies really should be on the case and it should be no more

expansively make that phone call. You bought something, it's not

right, it does not fit, you are sending it back. Any changes? You

can send it back now, you have 14 days to cancel the sale. You have

another 14 days to send it back. What the regulations say is it

should be made much clearer if you have to pay to send them back. You

should be re`funded the delivery cost unless you as for something

like express delivery. I have seen a few websites are saying there is a

restocking charge of 20% of the goods. What they should be saying is

you have to pay for sending them back but they should not be applying

a blanket charge for a restocking if the goods are essentially pristine

condition. Thank you very much. That is it from us for the week. You can

keep up`to`date with all the news about the pound in your pocket and

your rights and the energy news of the week. Updates are available on

social media. More next week. This is BBC News. Let us bring you

up`to`date with the headlines. Pro`Russian separatists should down

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