In total, public borrowing for the four months of the financial year so far totals £44.9bn. with the severe drop last month being due to 2nd installment tax payments. The OBR or Office for Budget Responsibility is predicting a total borrowing figure of £149bn for the financial year 2010/11, down from £155bn in the year previous. So we’re going the right way, but with a net debt of £816.2bn or £927.4bn if you include bank bail-outs, we’ve still got quite a journey on our hands. Thank you Johnny Banker you absolute bleedin…

The level of awareness about mis-sold PPI has increased dramatically recently with more TV advertising appearing and more claims companies setting up. This development within the industry has lead to over half of the 114,500 complaints being made within the last 18 months. But what difference have all these complaints made? Well, the Financial Services Authority (FSA) has so far fined 24 firms in the UK to the tune of £13 million.

The MoJ is one of the largest departments with a budget of £9.2bn

Under new instructions from the PM to cut £2bn in costs from the department, a third of the MoJ’s 80,000 staff could see their jobs at risk. To give some idea of huge an amount that cutback is, £2bn could pay for the entire prison service for a year, despite this the MoJ is taking it seriously and has asked all it’s departments to find savings of between 25% and 40%. It goes without saying that, for mis-sold PPI alone, the MoJ does a pretty important job and one that allows no room for compromise or sub-standard practice.

The fear is that with the MoJ’s funding cut they may not be able to provide an adequate service, putting citizens and consumers at risk of dealing with unscrupulous individuals or companies.

So, to help the FSA deal with the increase in claims, resources were shifted around and the Financial Services Act 2010 gave them the ability to make firms compensate clients through a collective redress scheme. Collective redress is similar to the US class action tool used to combine multiple identical claims into one claim against the alleged offender. This method would save a lot of time and resources and could mean quicker payouts but the power can only be used in against offences that a court or tribunal would find to be failures and the Limitation Act 1980 would limit victims to making their claim within 15 years of the failure occuring.

So we couldn’t help but notice that Thursday saw a MASSIVE step in alternative banking and one that could be the start of something exciting for financial consumers across the UK. We touched on it in Tuesday’s blog… this giant step was made by Metro Bank, the first new high street bank in the UK for over 100 years and they definatley do things differently. Customers are provided with lollipops and dogs with biscuits as well as free coin counting machines for customers. They’re open 7 days a week, from 8am – 8pm weekdays and have a retail-industry-style focus on customer service.

Whether they prove to be the revolution that the UK banking industry needs remains to be seen, but with Tesco Bank not far off branches in their supermarkets, the future is looking fairer and more competitive for financial consumers who are willing to shop around.

Spealing to the Secretary of State for Business, Vince Cable, presenter Adam Shaw asked why the UK banking industry was so unfair, Mr Cable responded with an appreciation for the bank’s uncompetitve attitude, saying: “When we talk about restructuring the industry, we mean a more competitive system where consumers are not ripped off.”

The show also touched on emerging alterntives to the traditional banking houses, we’ve already spoken on the blog about Tesco and Virgin but the programme introduced us to Metro Bank, the first new high street bank for over 100 years. Metro’s approach is one that could prove very popular, putting aside jargan and zero competition and embracing customer service. This fresh approach goes as far as calling their branches ’stores’, opening at 8am, having glass-less counters, offering lollypops and even providing dog biscuits. With a current system that seems to be failing and with lending down by 10% over last year to 3.2bn, the lowest level in a decade, a new bank with new ideas could go a long way.

It’s easy to see why the poor old mortgage advisors have seen their paypacket hit, with figures showing mortgage related income falling to just 44% of their total average income. But they’re not down in the mouth, most advisors are looking forward to the job and welfare cuts and are predicting an increase in protection sales as a result.

It’s findings show that 34% of people with general insurance policies have switched provider in the past 12 months to get a better deal and a third of people said they were now more likely to use a price comparison website. Some encouraging news also came out of the research, according to the stats: fewer consumers are cancelling their insurance policies to avoid mis-sold PPI and save money. In last years survey, 11% of people said they were considering stopping their Payment Protection Insurance (PPI) to save money, but this has fallen to just 6% over the last 12 months. Good news, as long as the policy has been sold correctly.

The company operated as a network and recruited mortgage and insurance brokers but came unstuck when Mr Head failed to put in place systems and controls to ensure the brokers acted correctly. He also failed to properly supervise insurance brokers linked to a firm previously disciplined by the FSA for Payment Protection Insurance failings and as a result was fined £10,500.

Closer to home, payment protection insurance claims continue to flood in to the Ombudsman but with unemployment still high (2.5 million at the last count) and May’s figures due for release this week, the number of people protecting themselves with good PPI is at an all time low. This of course can have some serious consequences, some of which are discussed in an article from today’s Telegraph…