Apple rejected or removed 1m malicious apps from App Store in 2020 and stopped $1.5bn transactions

Apple rejected or removed more than 1 million malicious apps from its App Store and stopped more than $1.5 billion in potentially fraudulent transactions in 2020.  The US tech giant said its combination of ‘sophisticated technology and human expertise’ kept customers on its online store safe for the year.  Apple also deactivated 244 million customer … Read more

House prices up £20k in a year as number of transactions DOUBLED

The average property price surged £20,000 annually in February, according to official figures, as separate data showed that housing transactions doubled in March compared to a year ago. House prices increased 8.6 per cent in the year to February, marking the highest annual rate of growth since 2014, the Office for National Statistics said. The … Read more

Would you spy on granny’s financial transactions? Debit card launched to prevent financial abuse

A new financial services company has launched a debit card that allows families, friends and carers to manage an elderly person’s financial affairs through a virtual or physical debit card. The co-founder of GuardianCard, Nick Thompson, says the business and card were created to prevent the elderly being subjected to theft and other types of … Read more

Housing transactions leap by nearly a quarter in February in show of ‘remarkable resilience’ 

Housing transactions jumped a quarter in February in what has been described as a show of ‘remarkable resilience’ in the market.  There was a huge 23 per cent increase in transactions between January and February, on a seasonally-adjusted basis, official figures show. In total, there were 147,050 homes bought or sold in February 2021, according … Read more

Housing transactions drop for first time since April as stamp duty holiday nears end

Property transactions in the UK took a tumble in January for the first time in nine months, in the latest sign the pandemic-fuelled market boom is coming to an end. There were 98,830 residential property transactions last month, according to HMRC’s provisional estimate of UK residential transactions – 25.2 per cent fewer than December 2020. … Read more

Home buying bottleneck means transactions taking longer to complete

The average property is taking nearly a month longer to sell once under offer, due to a conveyancing bottleneck that has developed since the property market shutdown in March and April. The multi-agent property seller Movewise looked at properties that had exchanged over the past 30 days, and found that the buyers’ offer had been … Read more

Sunderland, Dundee and Stoke On Trent see the sharpest rise in housing transactions

The locations with the biggest jump in housing transactions during the pandemic have been revealed. They include Sunderland, Dundee and Stoke-on-Trent, according to the exclusive figures by Lloyds Banking Group. It found that Sunderland saw the biggest rise in the number of transactions, up 91.3 per cent in the three months from June to August, … Read more

Used car sales halved as lockdown put the brakes on 1m motor transactions

Second-hand car sales were cut in half between April and June this year as the coronavirus lockdown prevented dealerships and private owners selling vehicles. New figures from the motor trade body show that the used car market declined by 49 per cent, with transactions for used cars slipping by one million units.  However, industry insiders … Read more

Coinbase paused more than $280,000 in Bitcoin transactions after Twitter hack on public figures

Coinbase paused more than $280,000 in Bitcoin transactions from 1,100 users after Twitter hack on public figures like Elon Musk and Joe Biden Coinbase stopped $280,000 in bitcoin payments after a high-profile hack The payments came from  1,100 individuals who were fooled by the scam A high-profile hack affected 130 accounts last week and has cast … Read more

Cash made up just 23% of transactions in 2019 as contactless boomed

Cash was used for less than a quarter of all payments last year for the first time ever, new figures show, as people frequently choose debit cards and contactless to make payments instead. The percentage of all payments made using banknotes and coins fell to 23 per cent in 2019, according to trade body UK … Read more