Buying A House 'Cheaper Than Renting'

Home buyers are almost £900 better off a year than those who rent - but an upturn in house prices means the gap has narrowed in recent months, a report has found.

Research by Halifax, which based its calculations on its own database as well as official figures, found that people buying a three-bedroom house face typical costs of £672 a month, which is £73 less than the average £745 a month cost of renting.

Five years ago, renting was considered much more financially attractive than buying, but home buying costs have since fallen by more than a third, meaning that buying has become cheaper than renting.

Falls in house prices following the economic downturn combined with low mortgage rates in the low interest rate environment have all contributed to the about-turn.

Meanwhile, rental costs have been pushed higher by strong demand in the sector, as many renters have struggled to get on to the property ladder.

But a return to activity in the housing market has pushed house prices up, which means that the gap between buying and renting costs has narrowed from a difference of £78 a month one year ago.

Halifax recently reported that prices nationally have risen by 5% over the last year. Other reports have recently put prices in London at around 10% higher than they were a year ago.

People living in London and Northern Ireland have the most to gain from buying rather than renting, the research suggested. The gap in percentage terms is biggest in Northern Ireland, at 11%. Buying in Northern Ireland costs £369 a month on average, while renting costs £415.

In cash terms, Londoners have the most to gain from being on the property ladder, with a saving of almost £100 a month.

Wales and Yorkshire and the Humber were the only areas of the UK where renting was found to be more affordable than buying. In Scotland, buying was found to work out £27 a month cheaper than renting.

Martin Ellis, housing economist at Halifax, said: "A combination of lower mortgage rates and declining house prices has substantially reduced the cost of buying over the past six years.

"Nevertheless, the number of home buyers in the 12 months to June 2013 was nearly half of that in 2008, which will have been constrained by worries over job security."

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BlackBerry Slashes Jobs In Face Of $1bn Loss

BlackBerry has confirmed it will cut 40% its global workforce as it said it expects to report that it has lost almost $1bn in its second quarter.

The smartphone company said it will lay off 4,500 employees as it tries to slash costs by 50% and shift its focus back to competing mainly for the business customers most loyal to its brand.

The Canadian-based firm had been scheduled to release its net earnings for the quarter next week but warned on Friday that it expects to post a staggering loss of between $950m and $995m.

Shares in the company plunged as low as $8.01 when the stock reopened for trading on Friday, before closing down 17% at $8.72.

Thorsten Heins, president and CEO of BlackBerry, said in a statement: "We are implementing the difficult, but necessary operational changes announced today to address our position in a maturing and more competitive industry, and to drive the company toward profitability.

"Going forward, we plan to refocus our offering on our end-to-end solution of hardware, software and services for enterprises and the productive, professional end user."

BlackBerry boss Thorsten Heins says the changes are hard but 'necessary'

BlackBerry said last month that it would consider selling itself and reiterated on Friday that a special committee of its board of directors continues to "evaluate all options".

The BlackBerry, pioneered in 1999, was the dominant smartphone for on-the-go business people and other customers before Apple debuted the iPhone in 2007. Since then, BlackBerry has been hammered by competition from the iPhone as well as Android-based rivals like Samsung.

In January, the company unveiled new phones running a revamped operating system called BlackBerry 10. The Z10 and Q10 were designed to better compete for customers and rejuvenate the brand, but BlackBerry's market share continues to lag behind its rivals.

BlackBerry, formerly known as RIM, was once Canada's most valuable company with a market value of $83bn in June 2008.

Canada's industry minister James Moore said in a statement: "Our thoughts are with those who have lost their jobs at BlackBerry, it is always a cause for concern for our Government."

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Barclays £1.3m Cyber Raid: Four Due In Court

Four alleged cyber plotters accused of stealing £1.3m from a high street bank by taking control of its computer system are due to apear in court later.

It follows the arrest of eight men suspected of targeting a branch of Barclays bank in Swiss Cottage, north London.

Tony Colston-Hayter, 47, of Seymour Street, Marylebone, central London, is charged with conspiracy to steal.

Michael Victor Harper, a 26-year-old estate agent of Kiln Place, Hampstead, northwest London, Darius Bolder, 34, and Lewis James Murphy, 29, both of Ebury Bridge Road, Chelsea, central London, are accused of conspiracy to commit fraud by false representation.

Bolder also faces an additional charge of conspiracy to steal.

All have been remanded in custody until their appearance at Westminster Magistrates Court.

The other four men have been bailed to a central London police station on dates in late November pending further inquiries.

Police carried out a secret intelligence operation following the theft in April.

It is believed somebody posing as an engineer planted a "keyboard video mouse" (KVM) - which can be purchased online for as little as £10 and is the size of a small laptop computer - at the branch.

That allowed thieves to transmit the contents of the computer's desktop, take control of the machine remotely and access accounts.

Alex Grant, Barclays' managing director of fraud prevention, said the bank "acted swiftly to recover funds" on the day of the theft and that no customers suffered financial loss.

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Housing Market: Rental Costs Near Record

The effect of rising house prices on the rental market is laid bare today as a report suggests private rents are just £1 short of record highs.

The lettings network LSL Property Services said rents had reached their second highest level since 2008 - largely because of a shortage of property to buy as Government schemes help people onto the ladder.

LSL, which owns the Your Move and Reeds Rains chains, reported that at £743 on average, monthly rents in August were just £1 less than the all-time high recorded in October 2012.

The pace of rent increases stepped up to 0.7% month-on-month in August.

It said rents were 1.3% higher across England and Wales than a year ago - less than half the rate of inflation - but London's rental market was soaring.

At £1,126 typically, rents in the capital have risen at a much faster rate than inflation and are up by 4.8% year-on-year.

Earlier this week, official figures showed that house prices in London were up by nearly 10% year-on-year, indicating the strength of demand.

Wales saw the second biggest annual increase in rents, with a 2.3% uplift taking average rents to £561.

The South East recorded the strongest month-on-month growth, with a 2% rise pushing monthly rents to £762.

By contrast, rents in Yorkshire and the Humber are 1.6% lower than last year, at £536 typically, followed closely by a 1.5% annual fall in the North West, taking average rents to £582.

The North East saw the biggest month-on-month drop in rents, with a 0.8% fall taking average rents to £523.

Across the country, rental inflation had been cooling off for much of this year following the launch of Government schemes to give people with low deposits a chance to buy.

First-time buyer numbers have reached their highest levels in more than five years following the initiatives such as Funding for Lending and Help to Buy, which have widened access to mortgages and allowed some people who were previously trapped in renting to break free.

But David Newnes, director of LSL Property Services, said that weak income growth, which has an impact on households' ability to borrow, and a lack of housing supply meant that the private rental sector was continuing to see strong demand from new tenants.

Mr Newnes said: "Better availability of finance has allowed some households to leave the rental market. And rents certainly felt the short-term impact of that.

"But releasing a blast of pent-up pressure to buy a home is unlikely to change the long-term trend in renting.

"Although Government schemes are helping, buying a first home is still extremely hard on the back of low salary growth."

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Bra Price-Fixing Probe Launched By Watchdog

The country's biggest department store chains are facing investigation over suggestions they colluded with a bra manufacturer to fix prices.

The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) alleged that the manufacturer of the Shock-Absorber range, DB Apparel UK, entered into nine anti-competitive agreements with John Lewis, Debenhams and House of Fraser between 2008 and 2011.

It has requested a response to the claims from the four companies but the OFT said it believed they infringed competition law by entering into resale price maintenance deals that set a fixed or minimum resale price on numerous products within the sports bra range nationally.

The OFT said that during the three years in question, the Shock-Absorber range had a market share of about 15%.

Ann Pope, the regulator's senior director of services, said: "The OFT takes allegations of price-fixing seriously.

"Resale price maintenance limits competition between retailers and can lead to consumers paying higher prices.

"We will carefully consider the parties' representations to the OFT's Statement of Objections before deciding whether competition law has in fact been broken," she concluded.

More follows...

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Barclays Cyber Theft: Arrests After £1.3m Stolen

Eight men have been arrested after a gang stole more than £1m from a high street bank by taking control of one of its computers.

The money was stolen from a Barclays branch in Swiss Cottage, London, earlier this year using a device known as a KVM switch.

The hardware, which can be purchased online for as little as £10, allowed the gang to transmit the contents of the computer's desktop and take control of the machine remotely.

It is believed the device was installed by a man who pretended to be an IT engineer to gain access to the branch.

Some £1.3m was withdrawn from accounts, although most of the money has since been recovered.

Detective Inspector Mark Raymond, of the Metropolitan Police's Central e-Crime Unit, said: "Those responsible for this offence are significant players within a sophisticated and determined Organised Criminal Network, who used considerable technical abilities and traditional criminal know-how to infiltrate and exploit secure banking systems."

The men, aged between 24 and 47, are currently in custody at various police stations in London.

More follows...

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City Watchdog Hits JPMorgan With Huge Fine

By Mark Kleinman, City Editor

The City regulator will slap one of its biggest-ever fines on the Wall Street banking giant JPMorgan on Thursday over the derivatives losses which last year cost it more than $6bn (£3.7bn).

Sky News understands that the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) will make an announcement at approximately 2pm UK time in which it will say that the so-called "London Whale" affair will cost JPMorgan well over £50m in penalties for failing to ensure the effective supervision of its traders and that its trading positions were accurately reported.

The FCA will also say that it has agreed a string of toughened compliance, reporting and risk management procedures with JP Morgan executives in the UK and that it will monitor the firm's activities more robustly.

Further measures are expected to be announced as part of Thursday's settlement.

People familiar with the agreement said it would be the biggest penalty imposed by the UK regulator for transgressions unrelated to the global Libor rate-rigging probe.

It is possible that only the £160m fine handed out to UBS for Libor-manipulation last December will have been larger, although the exact size of the FCA punishment was unclear.

JP Morgan executives give evidence over the 'Whale' losses to US Senate

The FCA statement will be coordinated with regulators in the US as part of an overall settlement reported by the Wall Street Journal this week at $800m (£496m).

It will not preclude the prospect of additional charges being filed against the bank, the newspaper added.

The "London Whale" involved a London-based trader, Bruno Iksil, who racked up billions of pounds of bets on derivatives products which turned sour, and which were then concealed from the bank's top management by several colleagues who have since been fired.

US prosecutors charged Julien Grout and Javier Martin-Artajo, two former traders at JPMorgan, last month with conspiracy and fraud for allegedly covering up the trading losses. On Monday, a grand jury indicted both men.

Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan's chairman and chief executive, apologised for having initially dismissed the affair as "a tempest in a teapot" and this week announced significant changes to the firm's compliance and risk management functions, including the hiring of thousands of additional employees.

The bank has also clawed back millions of dollars in bonuses from employees over the trading losses.

It is the latest in a series of regulatory blows to hit Mr Dimon, lauded as the most successful banker on Wall Street for having stewarded JPMorgan through the financial crisis.

The FCA and JPMorgan both declined to comment.

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Apple iPhone: iOS 7 Download Problems

Apple's new-look operating system has got off to a rocky start, with users complaining of having difficulties downloading it.

Hailed as a new beginning for the technology giant, iOS 7 was eagerly anticipated and millions rushed to download it on its Wednesday release.

But many people complained over long download times, while others had to go through multiple attempts to install the software. 

One typical error message read: "Software Update Failed: An error occurred whilst downloading iOS 7.0."

The operating system became available for UK users at 6pm local time but users soon took to social media to express their frustration as "iOS 7.0" became a trending topic on Twitter.

Sam Allison, tweeting under the handle @VF2010--, responded to the outcry, saying: "Guess I'm not the only one getting an Error message trying to Download IOS 7.0 #Annoying"

Conor Rickards, using the handle @--cajr, opted for sarcasm, tweeting: "Having a great time using IOS 7.0" whilst posting a picture of the error message."

The software has also been released for the iPad

Others, such as @King--Julien1984, complained about messages telling them their download would take 11 hours, or more, to be completed.

Elle Lake (@lizzylake) said: "43 minutes remaining to download iOS 7.0 but now 10 minutes later there is an error,and I have to upload it again with another 2 hour wait."

@igc223 said: "Deleted all my apps, music, and pictures and still don't have enough storage to download iOS 7.0"

But some people did manage to download the system and praised it, such as Ashlyn Tracy (@MsPrettyPricey), who said: "Loving the new iOS 7.0 #iPhone. Get it people."

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the iOS7 download problems.

Industry observers had suggested the arrival of the operating system, which is said to have a cleaner look than its predecessors, could go some way to silencing Apple's critics.

The new operating system has been heralded as a new start for the tech firm

It was unveiled just months after Apple posted its first profit slide in a decade and drew accusations that it had failed to innovate.

British design chief Sir Jonathan Ive called the operating system as an "important new direction" when he showcased the software at Apple's annual Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco earlier this year.

The American company's chief executive, Tim Cook, described it as "the biggest change to iOS since the introduction of the iPhone".

It has been designed to make the iPhone appear bigger, with features crafted to take advantage of the entire screen.

Text is said to appear sharper, while a "control centre" on the phone allows users to adjust settings with just one swipe from the bottom of the screen.

This gives instant access to functions such as airplane mode, wi-fi, bluetooth or do not disturb, and enables users to quickly pause or play a song, jump to the next track and stream music.

Meanwhile a "notification centre" is available from the "lock" screen so users can view updates with a "simple swipe".

Apple has also introduced an AirDrop tool to share content - said to be fully encrypted - with contacts nearby, and has added further updates to its cameras and its Siri feature.

The new operating system's launch this week comes just days before two new iPhones go on sale - one of which features a fingerprint scanner.

Executive Phil Schiller sent a massive cheer through the audience at the San Francisco conference in June when he told developers: "Can't innovate any more, my a***!"

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Pensions: Some Savers Get No Value For Money

The Office of Fair Trading's (OFT) study of the £275bn defined contribution (DC) workplace pensions market has found 10% of schemes offer no value for money.

The trading watchdog, which decided not to refer the market to the Competition Commission or recommend a cap on charges, made a string of recommendations to shake up the sector instead.

The OFT said it had agreed a package of reforms with companies and The Pensions Regulator as the auto-enrolment programme expands.

Over the next five years up to nine million people are set to be automatically placed into a DC scheme by their employer as part of Government efforts to get people saving more for their later years.

As well as examining whether savers were getting value for money, the OFT's investigation also took in the pressure on providers to keep their charges low and looked at the size of pension pot people were likely to end up with at retirement.

The pensions minister Steve Webb has pledged to act on the findings

It said that the Government should consult on improving the transparency and comparability of pension schemes to make it easier for employers to choose a scheme for their workers.

The OFT said employers "often lacked the capability or the incentive to assess value for money."

The watchdog also called on ministers to look at preventing schemes being used for automatic enrolment which ramp up management costs for people when they stop contributing to their pension, perhaps because they have changed jobs.

It identified a risk of savers losing out in two parts of the market - in what it said were "old and high charging contract and bundled trust schemes" and in smaller trust-based schemes because of "low levels of trustee engagement and capability."

The Pensions Regulator, the OFT said, had agreed to take "rapid action" to look at whether the smaller schemes were delivering good value and Government had agreed new enforcement powers to clamp down on them.

The Association of British Insurers is to begin an immediate audit of the old and high-charging schemes, which the OFT said contained around £30bn of savings.

Clive Maxwell, OFT chief executive, said: "We have found problems in relying on competition to drive value for money for savers in this market.

"We've therefore worked closely with the Government, regulators and industry to agree a set of measures that we believe are an important step in helping to ensure that savers get better outcomes.

"It is important, particularly given that automatic enrolment is already under way, that these measures are implemented rapidly," he concluded.

Minister for Pensions Steve Webb said: "This report outlines further important ways to help consumers, and we will act on its recommendations.

"In particular, we need to ensure those already in pension schemes are getting good value for money, and will be actively involved in the audit of pension schemes sold prior to 2001.

"We will consult shortly on minimum scheme standards, including further action on charges."

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iPhone 5S Sale Queue Starts Four Days Early

Two Apple devotees have pitched camp outside the firm's flagship store as the first in the queue for the new iPhone 5S.

The device does not go on sale until Friday but by that point the enterprising teenagers are hoping to sell their spot for as much as £1,000.

One of the students, Gad Harari, 17, said: "There are crazy people who are willing to do that."

Mr Harari, from Hendon, north London, is a familiar face outside the store as he has always been among the first in line to buy the new models of iPhone.

Noah Green says he has 'pretty much everything that Apple makes'

He took up his spot on Monday and said: "We are always among the first to get a new iPhone. I came down last night to be the first – this time we really wanted to be first."

He said he had already been offered £200 for his place but reckoned people would offer more before they go on sale at 8am on Friday.

Mr Harari and his friend Noah Green, also 17, and from Stanmore, in northwest London, have been sheltering from the wet weather under a green tent kitted out with technology, including one of Apple's MacBook laptops.

The 5S device, said to be twice as fast as its predecessor, sets itself apart from its competitors with its Touch ID feature. This allows users to unlock their phone with the touch of a finger.

The tent has been kitted out with the latest technology

Mr Green, who runs his own web business, said: "I'm really excited. It's going to be incredible, this launch. It's going to be the biggest yet.

"I collect Apple products. I pretty much have everything that Apple makes."

5S prices start at £549 and the cheaper 5C phone costs from £469.

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