An Aladdin’s cave of weekend money news

This weekend’s money sections were a colourful collection, taking readers on a personal finance treasure hunt. Whilst the many offerings haven’t impacted our weekly tally too much, MRM has continued to see a rise in savings stories which are up from 15 per cent last weekend to 18 per cent.

Ali Hussain in The Sunday Times took a festive look at savings, highlighting the best financial gifts to buy children this Christmas. Although the Government will scrap CTFs from next year, Hussain notes that there is still time to open one for a baby born before the first of August 2010. He also highlights gold and silver coins as sensible ‘hard’ assets which can double up as interesting presents. As Jo Thornhill at The Daily Mail looked at the security of cash in Irish banks, Eurozone savings were also in the spotlight at the Financial Times, where Tanya Powley reported on the increasing numbers of savers seeking to move banks as the crisis rages on.

Whilst the levels of investment (27 percent) and utilities (13 per cent) stories continued to fluctuate, the noticeable change was in the tally of pensions pieces which almost halved since last weekend, falling from nine per cent to five percent. What caught the eye of MRM however, was the repeat reference to the new pension on the block – immediate vesting personal pensions (IVPP). After a debut appearance in last Saturday’s Telegraph , Matthew Vincent at the Financial Times gave a critique of these tax-relief products which can provide attractive returns.

Digging into the far corners of the money section cave, we also came across a gem of a warning from The Daily Mail’s Neil Craven on the perils of missing the small print, which could lead unaware Wonga.com customers into a terrifying annual interest rate of 2698 per cent if they aren’t careful. On the subject of being savvy, The Independent’s Kate Hughes encourages us all to increase our awareness of the huge amounts of financial information everyday corporations hold about ordinary people…Big Brother is watching!

The rest of the scores on the board this week were:

Charity                  0%

Credit cards        3%

Fraud/scams      2%

IFAs                       0%

Insurance            8%

Investment        27%

Mortgages          10%

Pensions              5%

Regulation          2%

Savings                 18%

Tax                         12%

Utilities                 13%