Accord Mortgages has added more options to the types of acceptable income it will consider when deciding how much to lend to a potential borrower. The move is designed to help more undeserved borrowers, which include zero-hours contractors, limited company directors and people receiving certain benefits. Accord Mortgages’ additions include allowing 100% of company directors’ salary and share of profits as an alternative to their directors’ salary and dividends, where they have more than a 50% shareholding in their company. Sixty per cent of zero-hours contractor income will also be considered for key workers including NHS bank nurses and locums, care home workers and supermarket employees to name a few, with annuities and benefits included at 100% and 60% respectively.

Standard Life has found that online searches for ‘best saving account’ jumped by 82% in June and 172% in July compared to the same time last year, equating to 165,000 and 201,000 searches in June and July respectively. The recent increases in interest rates also drove 74,000 searches for ‘best savings rate’ in June and a further 90,500 searches in July. Furthermore, the recent search trend was replicated over a variety of terms associated with savers on the hunt for better rates. There were around 18,000 searches for ‘best one-year fixed rate ISA’ in June, increasing to just over 22,000 in July, which are equivalent to annual increases of 235% and 331% respectively.


Quilter Chevoit has introduced a new short-term fixed income strategy for use in discretionary portfolios that invests based on the different tax treatment of returns from gilts. The strategy aims to provide high return competitive with cash deposits for clients with a low risk profile by investing in carefully selected individual gilts with low coupons and short-term maturities. The discretionary strategy is tailored for tax efficiency and therefore is relatively more attractive for higher or additional rate taxpayers. The standard management fee for this service will be 0.25% per annum up to £2m invested. Amounts above £2m will face a tiered fee structure, the first £2m at 0.25% and then any excess of this at 0.20%. The minimum investment amount in £250,000.

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