Property taxes can erase affordability even after the mortgage ends

The former CEO of Taco Bell says McDonald’s new drink menu lacks originality. Greg Creed, who served as Taco Bell’s chief marketing officer when the chain introduced the popular “Baja Blast” drink over 20 years ago, shared some feedback this week on McDonald’s new menu of “refresher” drinks. “Any brand could have come up with…

HSBC has announced mortgage rate cuts, effective from 1 September. Changes will be made across its mortgages for first-time buyer, homemover, remortgage, switching, borrowing more and international residential borrowers.  The majority of rate reductions will apply at 60-75% loan-to-value (LTV) tiers.  TSB has also lowered rates across its product transfer and additional borrowing mortgages. …

From June 2026, Barclays removed the monthly customer fee for Direct Investing. Credit: Barclays. Barclays has secured approval from the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to provide targeted support to eligible customers who are starting to invest.  The service is scheduled to launch later this year through a controlled rollout.   Access deeper industry intelligence Experience…

Qatar National Bank (QNB) wrote off 6.6 billion riyals ($1.8 billion) of loans and advances to customers in the second quarter, its largest quarterly total since at least 2018. The amount was more than 41 times the 159 million riyals written off in the first quarter and surpassed the previous record of 5.4 billion riyals…

Klarna (NYSE: KLAR) has added a new layer of protection for customers in the Nordic region, rolling out an in-app tool that lets people check in real time whether an incoming phone call is actually coming from the company. The feature, called Call Status Detection, is now live in Sweden, Norway, Finland and Denmark, extending…

Analysts are crunching the numbers on Marvell’s recently announced Google deal and how much fresh upside it really offers.