Don’t let your Debt Spiral Out of Control

Many have lost sources of income during the pandemic and fear being sucked into a deeper hole. If you have been financially impacted, you are not alone. Take a step back and look at things you can implement to ease the stress.

1: Understand what debt you are in

So much news is being thrown at you constantly and many people are bogged down by debt and never understand how much debt they are in or how much it will cost them in interest. First, you need to establish and make a list of what debts you have, how much debt you have, and how much the interest rate that is debt is costing you.

2: Tracking your spending

Take time to track your spending, record all costs like rent payments and all little costs that pop up. It is an eye-opening experience for many to see how many small purchases on a cup of coffee can add up to over €50 in a month! Do you really need to spend €17.99 each month on Netflix? Using free online resources …

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Morgan Stanley Borrowing on the Bond Market

The stock market and Trading has been the hot topic of the past decade. Many young individuals look towards buying and trading stocks as the next fast way to make money. But the market is much harder to understand than it seems on the surface.

Morgan Stanley, one of the largest American based investment banks, has recently invested just over 400 million Euros on the bond market to secure against a group of buy-to-let mortgages and owner-occupiers located in Ireland. And of these, some vulture funds were bought not from the banks themselves, but rather from third-party locations such as Lone Star and Cerberus.

Generally, a vulture fund is a type of hedge fund, which is privately owned and operated. They are invested in debt considered to be weak or at default, which is also known as distressed securities. These vulture funds are looking to manage and overturn these debts to draw in a profit. Yet despite the large number of home loans in Ireland that were price-reduced following the most recent crash, vulture funds are seeing a hard time …

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What is Open Banking?

Open Banking is generally known as the practice of sharing personal financial information electronically, under secure conditions that are both approved by corporations and by the consumer. In doing so, Application programming interfaces (APIs) allow Third-Party Providers (TTP) to access financial information efficiently which results in smoother, faster, and easier financial processes.

Examples of how Open Banking has already started to become implemented would be budget tracking apps on your device, or even through your bank that could be connected to checking or savings accounts. Other instances where Open Banking has been used when you don’t even realize would be purchases of a home or monthly payments. Technology is becoming increasingly prominent in daily financial transactions, and understanding how this affects your life is essential.

What can Open Banking do for you though? Open Banking is a huge aspect for not only banks but also TPP’s and regulators. It offers more personability and customization to its consumers in managing and borrowing money as well as making payments.

App developers have recruited the use of APIs to create more streamlined and …

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Crack Down on Money Laundering

Everyone has heard of the term “Money Laundering”, but most fail to understand what exactly it is and how it affects not only our daily lives but also a county’s economy. Money Laundering is an illegal process that individuals can take advantage of to hide the origins of where money was obtained illegally. This is most often done by passing the money through a complex number of bank transfers to eventually erase and hide where the money originated. In the end, the money launderer receives the “clean” money.

Ireland has had a history of struggling with cracking down on money laundering, and in light of having to pay nearly 2 million Euro to the European Commission in July 2020 for failing to implement regulations, a new law has been passed in an attempt to begin intensifying legislation around anti-money laundering. The Criminal Justice (Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing) (Amendment) Bill 2020, was signed on May 5th, 2020.

This Bill aims to: 1: Prevent the creation of anonymous safe-deposit boxes by credit and financial institutions 2: Continuously improve on the customer …

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Saving During the Pandemic

Now is a great time to be investing in smart money saving techniques. The recent pandemic in 2020 has not treated many of us kindly, and money may be an issue even as we move into 2021. We’ve composed a shortlist of just a couple of ways you could help yourself financially to not only get back on your feet but also begin thinking of how to use your money wisely!

1: Begin Saving

Everyone should already always have an emergency fund at the ready, but why not go beyond that set a certain amount of your paycheck to be put into savings? According to Retail Analyst Mr. Kantar Worldpanel, nearly a quarter of Irish families regularly shop at either Aldi or Lidl. In that, nearly 75% of families rarely shop at discounter shops. These family-friendly stores could not only give you better, more local products but also be less of a burden on your wallet. Mr. Worldpanel also reports that of the families that shop at Aldi or Lidl, their weekly grocery bill is nearly 20% lower than those …

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The Rise of Income Inequality in the United States Part 3

Now that we’ve assessed how wealth inequality started and how to improve wealth and saving data, here are some ideas about how to further reduce wealth disparity:

The top 1% savings rate is much higher than both the next 9% and bottom 90% savings rates. One idea that is radical is to encourage long-run savings. The United States government could directly invest in these savings accounts so that they earn great rates of return. The other aspect of this plan would be to have interest in borrowing savings so as to encourage people not to borrow from their savings. Encouraging saving of the bottom 90% would reduce wealth disparity.

Other ideas to reduce wealth disparity include the following:

Increase progressive income taxation to decrease wealth disparity. Increase estate taxes in the United States to decrease inherited wealth Increase access to education and health benefits cost controls. Improve minimum wage policies. This will in effect shift power from shareholders to workers. Create better laws protecting consumers (such as predatory lending) and increase financial regulation to increase middle class wealth. Educate the bottom …

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Independent.ie mention Irish Mortgage Brokers

We were mentioned in the Independent today in a story relating to the Central Bank, it hinged upon the fact that they had a ‘whistleblower’ line for people wanting to report financial wrongdoing and it wasn’t operating correctly which means they couldn’t take a call.

The story quoted us as follows: Compliance officer with Irish Mortgage Brokers Karl Deeter said it was not good enough that the whistleblower phone line was not being answered and emails not getting a response.

“Imagine if you called 999 to report a crime and no one answered. What would you think of our police service?” he said. A Central Bank spokesman claimed the problem had been rectified after the situation was raised with it by the Irish Independent.

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Central Bank whistle-blower line unmanned

We were asked to comment on a finding by Charlie Weston in the Independent about the fact that the private disclosure (or ‘whistle-blower’) lines in the Central Bank don’t work. After the newspaper highlighted this they took action, but we were not impressed that this was only found out through the work of a journalist.

The comment we offered was very clear (below).

Compliance officer with Irish Mortgage Brokers Karl Deeter said it was not good enough that the whistleblower phone line was not being answered and emails not getting a response. “Imagine if you called 999 to report a crime and no-one answered. What would you think of our police service?”

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PRTB deposit scheme? Whatever… Here’s the way around it

It is only due to fairly unsatisfactory outcomes with the PRTB (such as massive delays in hearings, awarding damages that will never be recovered and the fact that they jacked up their prices while also only charging one party to the contract) that the idea of them running any further ‘scheme’ is of concern.

On that basis, and in speaking to landlords, many of them won’t take part, and there’s a simple reason for it, they don’t want to be part of a scheme that creates more administration and reduces the relationship to being further beholden to a third party.

So here’s the way around it: stop taking deposits.

That’s all there is to it, landlords should merely stop taking deposits and when they do there will be nothing to give to the PRTB because the deposit was never received so it cannot be passed on.

What you can do is demand first and last months rent up front. This means you don’t hold a deposit for any damage, but if the damage is significant a deposit won’t cover it …

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Newstalk have Irish Mortgage Brokers on to discuss Central Bank rules

We were speaking on Newstalk about Central Bank rules and the impact they are having on different parts of the market. Some of the notable moments are mentioned below:

Karl Deeter of Irish Mortgage Brokers & Advisors.ie noted that high mortgage deposits are forcing people to stay in rented accommodation and fueling the housing shortage.

Deeter said: “If you’ve got people who have to come up with an extra €20,000 and they’re looking to save that, they end up renting a house for much longer than they would have. But because of that what you’re seeing is that they’re staying in a certain sector where the supply isn’t coming on board.

“It’s driving up rents. That’s almost like an additional tax which makes savings harder. It doesn’t mean that house sales have stopped or the prices aren’t rising; they are but it’s just that people aren’t borrowing to do it”.

The full story is on the Newstalk website here.

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