Banks and Building Societies in the UK

Banks and Building Societies in the UK

The banking system in the UK fulfils the important function of accepting deposits and lending money. It basically ‘oils the wheels’ of the economy. It is made up of a variety of banks and building societies.

Banks	Limited company, owned by shareholders, include Barclays, HSBC, RBS, Lloyds TSB
Building Societies	Mutual organisation, owned by members (customers), include Nationwide, Yorkshire Building Society

The trend over the last few decades has been for banks to ‘buy out’ building societies by paying the building society members (customers) sizeable sums of money or giving them shares in return for their ownership.

Building Society Services

• Principally to the personal customer market rather than to businesses
• Deposits, current and savings accounts for the members (customers)
• Loans, mortgages for house purchase
• Larger building societies provide property linked business services. Nationwide, for example, organises finance for property projects including major housing developments and schools.

Bank Services

• Wide range of services to both personal and business customers, main business services include:
• Current accounts – dealing with cash, cheques and automated payments
• Deposit accounts – paying interest on surplus funds

• Overdrafts – flexible borrowing on a current account to cover temporary requirements

• Loan accounts – financing loans with flexible repayments

• Mortgages – Loans for property purchase

Banks / Building Societies – The Difference

It is often difficult to tell the difference between banks and building societies in terms of the services they offer – main difference is extra services offered by banks – for example:

• Business services

• Specialised personal services such as safe custody (looking after the valuables of personal customers), and wills and trusts

Both banks and larger building societies offer the same wide range of financial services expected by personal customers – these include:

• Current accounts, debit and credit cards

• Overdrafts, personal loans and mortgages

• Insurance, travel money, investments

Bank Services for the Business Customer

Business Current Account

A ‘working account’ through which day-to-day transactions pass, including payments received from customers and payment of business expenses and wages.

Payments are made by cheque, BACS (standing orders, direct debits, payments to suppliers). Regular statements are sent by the bank to the business. These will be checked by the business against the bank account in the cash book.

A business may arrange for an overdraft on the current account, meaning that the business can borrow on a temporary basis from the current account.

Deposit Account

Used for excess money held by a business. Interest is paid by the bank on the amount deposited. Current account facilities (e.g. cheques, standing orders, direct debits and overdrafts) are not allowed on deposit accounts. Many business customers have both a current and a deposit account.

A business can use a deposit account as a temporary ‘home’ for surplus money. It can be transferred to the current account on request, or by telephoned or online instructions.

Substantial sums (normally £500k+) can be placed on deposit with a bank in what is often known as a ‘treasury account’. May allow withdrawals without notice but may need a longer period of notice, e.g. one, three, or six months.

Overdraft

Borrowing from the bank on a current account. Business can contact the bank and seek agreement for an overdraft facility up to a certain limit for a specified time. Interest will be charged on overdrawn balances and an arrangement/renewal fee is normally payable. A very flexible arrangement as the customer can borrow when the need arises, and will only pay interest on the amount borrowed.

Loan Accounts

Whereas an overdraft is a means of borrowing on an ordinary current account and will cover day-to-day expenses of the business, loan accounts are long-term loans for long term items, e.g. machinery and new projects. Typical examples of loan accounts include:

• Business Loan

Financing to cover large items of expense e.g. new machinery, premises expansion or a new project.

Amounts can range from £1000 to £100000.

Interest is paid, either at a rate fixed at beginning of loan, or at a variable rate in line with market rates during the lifetime of the loan.

A bank loan is for a set time period, normally between 2 and 30 years.

Often repaid in regular instalments, but may be varied, e.g. with a ‘repayment holiday’. This is where the borrower can wait a year or so before starting to make payments. Some loans can also be repaid in full at the end of the loan period.

• Commercial Mortgage

Loan for up to 25 years to cover the purchase of a property.

Arrangement in which property is used as security for borrowing. If business defaults on the loan, the bank can sell the property to obtain the funds. Amounts range from £25,000 to £500,000.

Interest is paid, either at a rate fixed at the beginning of the mortgage or at a variable rate in line with market rates during the lifetime of the mortgage.

Other Bank Services for Businesses

Wide range of services offered by banks through their subsidiary companies, including:

Debit and credit cards and card payment processing, issuing company credit cards, processing card payments as a ‘card merchant’

Insurance – protection for business employees, premises and other risks

International services – currency accounts, overseas payments, dealing with exports and imports

Bank subsidiary companies also help finance businesses through:

Leasing – a leasing company buys an asset needed by the business and then ‘rents’ it out to the business. Company cars are often leased rather than bought outright.

Factoring- providing finance to a company against their invoices issued to customers: invoices ‘bought’ from the business that issues them and the factoring company collects the money from the customer when the invoice is due.

How to Groom Your Cat

I thought I would share with all you cat lovers out there what I find to be the best grooming method for both longhaired and shorthaired cats.

The best place for grooming, if the weather permits, is outside, as this will keep dirt, hair and fleas out of the house.

There are various types of brushes and combs on the market, and what type is best for you will depend on the length of your cat’s fur, as well as personal preferences.

I use a soft-bristled brush which I find adequate for my shorthaired cat, but longhaired cats will need more specialised grooming tools such as fine and wide toothed combs, slicker brush for the tail (particularly for show cats).

Before you begin grooming your cat, it is wise to take the opportunity to check a few key areas to ensure your cat is healthy.

Inspecting Eyes, Ears and Claws

The eyes, ears and claws should be clean and without obvious signs of damage i.e. scratches and bleeding.

If your cat is healthy, its ears shouldn’t need much attention. Examine the inside of the inner flap for dirt, and clean it out with a piece of cotton wool dipped in olive oil. If your cat scratches its ears persistently it may have an infection – look for dark, waxy marks inside the ears. If the ears appear to be clean, however, an infection is unlikely. An alternative explanation for persistent ear-scratching may be that the ears are blocked by ear wax. Try massaging externally to loosen the blockage. If the cat continues to scratch, consult a vet.

A healthy, active cat’s claws are trimmed automatically because they are worn down as it excercises. If your cat is old, or confined indoors, you will need to check its claws regularly as they may need trimming. Untrimmed claws can grow into the pad of the paw, which will lead to your cat needing veterinary attention.

Cleaning the Face

Longhaired cats are prone to blockages in the tear ducts. When this occurs, tears run down the cat’s cheeks, leaving unsightly dark marks on the face. These can be removed using cotton wool dipped in a mild salt solution. However, if this problem persists you should contact your vet. Your cat’s eyes should be bright and clear – if there is any inflammation or discharge you should contact your vet immediately, as the cat may have a serious health problem.

Inspecting the Mouth

Examine your cat’s teeth for tartar. There are various products available to ‘clean’ your cats teeth, including treats. It is also recommended that you take your cat to the vets for an annual ‘scale-and-polish’.

Grooming Methods and Timescale

Longhaired cats will need daily grooming as loose fur when ingested by the cat whilst grooming can cause serious health problems. It is also necessary to avoid the fur becoming matted, which will result in a trip to your vets as the cat will need to be sedated whilst the matted fur is trimmed.

For shorthaired cats, two grooming sessions per week is perfectly adequate. In fact, some people believe that excessive grooming of shorthaired cats will result in the cat stopping grooming itself altogether.

When grooming a longhaired cat, it is best to start with a wide-toothed comb, and once this passes through the fur easily switch to a fine-toothed comb, and then use a wire type brush to remove loose fur. You can then use the slicker brush to fluff out the tail.

With a shorthaired cat, you can start by using a comb, and then either a soft-bristled or rubber brush. Work along the lie of the cat’s fur.

When grooming, look out for black, shiny specks. This is a sign of fleas so you will need to flea treat your cat.

Cleaning Dirty Fur

Cats don’t generally need washing as they usually clean themselves, however if your cat is very dirty you may need to clean it.

It is possible to bath your cat, I have bathed my cat on numerous occasions. It is just a case of getting the cat used to this experience and giving him a lot of love and attention. The best method is in the bath using the shower attachment. Ensure that the temperature of the water isn’t too hot or too cold. Use a special pet shampoo or mild baby shampoo, or watered down standard shampoo. You must ensure that you rinse the coat thoroughly after shampooing.

You must ensure your cat is kept in a warm place until it is completely dry.

I hope this article has been of use to you, please feel free to contact me with any questions, ideas or suggestions you may have. Thanks for reading and please subscribe for more articles like this.

5 Really Nice Desktop Twitter Tools

As I’ve mentioned previously, I’m a big Twitter fan. Up until recently I’ve only really tweeted from Gravity on my Nokia 5800, as I’m not a big fan of the twitter.com website. However, at the moment my Nokia is at the Vodafone store having the screen fixed, I’ve had to explore the PC Twitter options.

I was so surprised at the number of really useful tools out there. I’m planning on doing a comprehensive list of all the useful tools I have come across by category, but for now I thought I’d post a quick 5. All of the 5 tools below have not only been really useful to me, but also have what I would consider as a ‘nice’ user interface, always a plus in my books as I’m looking for something along the same lines as Gravity for the Nokia 5800 (see previous post).

 

1. Mixero

My first step into the world of Twitter for PC was to find a decent desktop client. Twitter.com is not a great interface and has limited options compared to the variety of desktop clients out there.

I had tried TweetDeck previously and although it was impressive in terms of features, the column layout didn’t really work for me, so I tried Mixero.

Mixero has a really nice Adobe AIR powered UI which includes support for themes. It doesn’t just look good, however, but has a number of interesting and useful features, including support for lists, saving searches and a built-in link shortener. Have look at their website which goes into quite a lot of detail on the features available.

 

2. Twitterfeed.com

Twitterfeed.com is invaluable if you are a blogger, or regularly post content to other websites that you want to also share on Twitter.

Basically, Twitterfeed will post updates from any RSS feed to your Twitter account, even giving you the option of adding your own defined prefix or suffix, choosing whether to show the post title, description or both, and filtering updates from a feed by keyword.

This last function in itself can be of great value to a lot of Twitter users. For example, if you regularly post images to a service like Flickr, and want to share some, but not all of the photos you post there on Twitter, it is possible to do this on Twitterfeed. By adding your photostream to Twitterfeed, and then filtering by a keyword, for example ‘@twitter’, every image you upload with @twitter in the title or description will be automatically posted on Twitter.

You can also log into Twitterfeed using OpenID so no need to create yet another user account!

 

3.Refollow

Refollow is a very useful tool for sorting your friends and followers on Twitter. It also has a very nice visual user interface. Refollow comes with a lot of search and filtering options for your friends/followers such as grouping by relationship, sorting by importance, filtering, crowd tagging, follow/unfollow/block options and Twitter Social Graph function.

Tools like this are very useful at the moment due to Twitter.com’s friend/follower management tools leaving much to be desired and API constraints making it difficult for desktop applications to have a lot of functionality in this area.

There are quite a few follower management tools out there, however I think that Refollow with its very nice UI and impressive feature set is definitely one to try.

4. Formulists

I was very impressed with Formulists. This service brings some very useful extra functionality to the Twitter Lists facility by enabling the creation of self-updating lists on a number of subjects.

It is possible to create a self updating list of recent interactions, people you have recently retweeted, people who have recently retweeted you, people who have recently unfollowed you, new followers, lists based on keyword features, and much more.

I’ve been struggling with the Twitter Lists function for a while – wanting to organise my Tweeps into lists but not quite knowing the best and least time-consuming way of doing this. I now have a number of self-updating lists to enable me to quickly find important groups of people on Twitter, as well as followed lists enabling me to keep up to date with people in various fields, more on that below.

All in all, Formulist is a very useful service, very easy to use and again, it’s pretty easy on the eyes too.

5. Listorious

I’m sure you’re all aware of Listorious and what it does but for anyone who may not be, Listorious is a comprehensive Twitter directory, making it possible for anyone to easily find what matters to them on Twitter.

You can search for lists relating to any keyword or tag, as well as viewing popular lists, and can follow these on Twitter with just one click.

Listorious also offers a listing service which enables you to list your own Twitter account along with any tags you wish to be associated with.

All in all, a very useful service for anyone who wishes to follow people tweeting on specific topics, and also will be useful for marketing purposes to target groups of people on Twitter who are interested in your product.

 

What about you, what Twitter tools would you recommend? Leave a comment and let me know and I’ll add to the comprehensive list – Ultimate Twitter Tools.

Laura’s Top 5 Nokia 5800 Apps

I love my Nokia 5800 (despite its flaws), and there are a select few apps which I believe really make a difference to the usability of my 5800 in various different areas, from social networking and email to music.

1. Gravity

The first of these, and I believe I speak for a lot of people when I say that this is one of the best if not the best Nokia 5800 application available for social networking, is Gravity by http://www.mobileways.de

Gravity is available from the Ovi Store. Gravity is predominantly a Twitter application, although it also has basic Facebook capabilities and some Foursquare capabilities, with plans to expand to include Flickr and other services in the future. A very exciting feature is integrated Google Reader support, enabling you to read, share and tweet your subscriptions directly from your device.

It is not a free application, but it is definitely worth the nominal download fee as this is a brilliant app which is very actively updated by its creator, Jan Ole Sur. (Twitter @janole).

Image Courtesy of Newsphone.org

You really have to see Gravity to believe it, the kinetic scrolling is very impressive and the UI is beautiful. The application boasts some impressive features including geotagging tweets with a location, the ability to upload images through various services including twitpic, yfrog and more. I would say Gravity is my most-used application, and I know there are a lot of people out there who would agree.

For more information on Gravity please see Mobileways link above, or search #gravity or #gravityhelp on Twitter.

2. Emoze

Emoze is a recent discovery of mine which I actually stumbled upon by accident whilst having a browse on Ovi Store.

Emoze is an integrated PUSH email client for Nokia 5800. To explain further, Emoze will deliver your email to your phone pretty much as soon as it is received. Emoze is permanently connected and checking email.

Image Courtesy of Techknots.com

Emoze integrates well into the messaging menu of the Nokia 5800 and I actually find that it feels much more like a native, integrated application than Nokia’s PUSH mail solution, Nokia Messaging, does.

Emoze is a free application available from the Ovi store, or download directly to your device from http://m.emoze.com

3.  TuneWiki

This app makes it on to the list simply because I love it so much, it’s basically an alternative music player, but with added features including lyrics display and sharing ‘now playing’ information on social networking sites.

Image Courtesy of SymbianSoftware.us

This app is very useful, especially if you are like me and like listening to music whilst looking at the lyrics. It also makes it very easy to share music on Twitter, etc. You even get the option to edit the text, enabling you to add the popular #nowplaying hashtag, for example.

TuneWiki is a free application available from the Ovi Store.

4. X-Plore

X-Plore by Lonely Cat Games software is an alternative file manager for S60 5th edition devices.

X-Plore is very easy to use, following the traditional Windows Explorer folders view with plus icons to expand to show sub folders.

Image Courtesy of SymbianSoftware.us

X-Plore has some very useful built in features including .zip and .rar support. Judging by the difficulties in finding a good .rar programme for Nokia 5800 (the WinRar application available is disappointing and not at all user-friendly), this feature should prove popular with Nokia 5800 users who download regularly using their device.

X-Plore is available as shareware with a relaxed registration option. You can download X-Plore from the Lonely Cat Games website.

5. ZX Reader

ZX Reader was the light at the end of a very long dark tunnel for me. I had spent a long time looking for an eBook reader that even worked on Nokia 5800, never mind the aesthetics, and then I came across ZXReader by Russian developers ZXStyles

Image Courtesy of Mobifunz.com

Although file support is limited to .fb2 and .txt files, which does make things a little difficult, this application is very good on Nokia 5800 and works well. The text display is quite customisable and it is very readable, I use ZXReader all the time.

I have also come across a website which can convert other file formats to .fb2 and .txt, which is useful if you are using this reader. http://ebook.online-convert.com/convert-to-fb2

You can download ZXReader from the ZXStyles website.

I hope you’ve found the above applications useful, please feel free to share your favourite Nokia 5800 applications!

The ‘Glory’ of England

I love the World Cup. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy watching football and supporting a team throughout the season, but to me the World Cup has always been a major event.

I think one of the main reasons for this is the fact that the World Cup is really our only chance to show a bit of patriotism and (hopefully!) have the chance to be proud of being English. I love the fact that when the World Cup is on I can walk down an ordinary residential street and see dozens of England flags flying from ordinary people’s houses, and people sitting in beer gardens with a George Cross painted on their faces.

Image Courtesy of BBC News

So, with the hearts of the nation in their hands, the England squad under Fabio Capello set off to South Africa, everyone praying for a repeat of 1966 glory, but I think if we are honest with ourselves knowing deep down that it wasn’t likely to happen.

So we come to the first match against USA. I watched the match at my parents’ house. My family have always been into the World Cup in a big way, with my Auntie actually painting her lawn red and white. My mum didn’t go quite that far, although she did put on an impressive buffet served on England plates in a house very tastefully accented with the odd England flag.

Technically it should have been an easy game. But after an England goal from Gerrard that a lot of the country missed due to an ITV HD technical issue (in that they accidently played adverts in the middle of a live football match), and a USA goal as a result of an absolute howler by England goalkeeper Robert Green, England’s World Cup dreams were far from fulfilled and a draw left England unsure of even reaching knockout stages.

Image Courtesy of The Telegraph

Then came the second game against Algeria, where a 0-0 draw after a very disappointing England performance left England fans praying for a win in the final group match against Slovenia, and wondering where the England team from the qualification matches had gone, and who this pub league team were that seemed to be playing in their place.

The final match in the group stages was against Slovenia, where England appeared to pick up the pace a little and a Milner cross led to a goal from Defoe, keeping England’s World Cup hopes alive, but at the same time only managing to hold a 1-0 lead over Slovenia, the smallest country in the World Cup.

Image Courtesy of Euronews.net

Finally, we come to tonight’s game against Germany, which turned out to represent England’s completely inglorious exit from the tournament with our worst defeat in World Cup history.

I’ll spare you all the painful rundown as we’ve had enough stress already tonight, but in summary we were hammered by Germany, along with by the Referee with a completely unfair decision to disallow a goal, causing many people to question FIFA’s decision not to introduce goal-line technology in the 2010 World Cup. An earlier tweet by @GenesysX makes a good point:

“I mean Tesco knows when I walk through the doors with a DVD, but FIFA can’t tell when the ball is through the posts. #WORLDCUP #FIFA”

Picture Courtesy of TheOriginalWinger.com

So many of you are probably feeling like I am, absolutely gutted that our World Cup hopes are over for another 4 years, but also a bit suspicious that perhaps England’s glory days might be coming to an end. The only time we see England flags flying is during the group stage of the world cup, when we used to have England flags flying throughout the world in English colonnies. Even the football is disappointing and we are being overtaken in talent and organisation by teams we should have beaten easily.

If only we celebrated St. George’s Day like the Irish with St. Patrick’s Day.  It would give the country the kind of national identity that at the moment we only really get during the World Cup. We are a multicultural country but all kinds of different citizens of England have been flying the flag during the World Cup. We complain about our country all the time, but in reality we don’t have it too badly in comparison to a lot of other countries throughout the world.

Image Courtesy of BelfastCity.gov.uk

So, in summary, a dissapointing exit from the World Cup for England, leaving us all bitterly dissapointed and hoping we manage to pick up enough to qualify for Euro 2012 this time round.

Now over to you, what do you all think? Should Capello continue to manage the England team? Do you think Rooney really is as fit as Capello claims? Goal line technology, necessary to ensure fairness or ruining the traditions of football? I’d love to hear all your thoughts!

I’m joining the Blogosphere!

I’ve finally decided, after realising I spend a lot of my time on the internet reading blogs, that it might be time I jumped on the blogging bandwagon!

I’m planning to post all kinds of different things, from my original creative writing, fiction and poetry, to my thoughts on topics like Technology and Mobile, Fashion, Politics, Issues and more.

I’m also looking to connect with others with similar blogs and am willing to link and promote on Twitter.

So, a little about myself. I’m 22 years old and from Lancashire in the North West of England. I live with my boyfriend and my cat and I work in Accounts Payable for an IT distribution company. I’m also currently studying for my AAT qualification.

I enjoy using the internet and am a self-confessed Twitter addict, in fact as I write this I’m toying with the idea of adding #hashtags! It’s nice not to have to stick to 140 characters though! I also enjoy messing about with my Nokia 5800, although I’m already looking forward to upgrade time to see what I can get next!

Me and my boyfriend watch a lot of films. I also listen to a wide variety of music. I play the keyboard and viola and am trying to learn a bit of piano at the moment. I have also had lessons in music theatre and love singing!

I have a lot of thoughts, I’m one of those people with an opinion on everything, which I’m sure you will realise as I get into this blogging thing! I’m open to ideas and suggestions of what I write about.

At the moment I’m a bit sceptical that anyone will actually read this, but I’m hoping I end up pleasantly surprised!

Expect another update very soon…