Mortgages: How to get the best deal

            Buying a home is the biggest purchase most people make during their lives

Qualifying for a mortgage can be a complicated affair and some first-time buyers may find it daunting. It is important to choose the correct lender and not to pay a higher rate than necessary.

That means that for some buyers, waiting to save more for a deposit can ultimately save many thousands of pounds on the annual mortgage bill.

By getting to know the process of how a mortgage works and what is required by the lenders, it is possible both to secure a lower interest rate and to increase the chances of being accepted for an appropriately sized loan.

A major difficulty with banks today is that they constantly change their lending criteria. To get a mortgage, applicants will need a good deposit, a clean credit history and a decent income.

For many first-time buyers the support of their parents may make the difference between getting a mortgage or not.

Deposits

The size of your deposit determines your monthly mortgage payments and the interest rate that you pay. Virtually all lenders use a loan-to-value banding system which means you pay much more if you have a smaller deposit.

We are consistently advising our clients in a position to save a bigger deposit to put down another 5% of the property value. This may be a lot to ask at a time when money is tight, but there are usually big savings to be made with another 5% added to the deposit.

Looking at the Post Office's mortgage rates, for example, the lowest two-year fixed rate they offer if you have a 10% deposit is 5.75%. Yet, with another 5% deposit, the mortgage rate drops to 4.29%.

So, over two years on a £200,000 interest-only mortgage, you would pay £5,840 less if you are able to save the extra 5% deposit.

Interest rate savings are more substantial with a longer term mortgage.

Northern Rock's lowest two-year fixed rate for those with a 30% deposit is 3.39%, but if you have a 10% deposit the rate increases to 5.88%.

Borrowers able to access the lowest Northern Rock rates will save £8,965 (including arrangement fees) over two years on a £200,000 mortgage compared with those able to take a fixed-rate with the smallest deposit available.

'Clamping down'

Before a bank will offer a mortgage, they will want you to know what your monthly expenses are and how much you have left in your bank account at the end of the month.

           Keeping on top of personal finances can make getting a mortgage easier

Virtually all unsecured debt is taken into consideration and any credit card or loan payments will reduce the amount that you can borrow.

Banks have clamped down on borrowers if they are attempting to take out an interest-only mortgage and it is likely that you will now require a 25% deposit to qualify for interest-only. Customers of HSBC and First Direct must earn a minimum of £30,000 a year to qualify for an interest-only mortgage

Interest-only mortgages offer a more affordable way of getting on the property ladder and the difference in the cost of the monthly payments is as much as £360 a month. This is on a £200,000 mortgage with a 25-year term on a typical interest rate.

Key tips for getting a mortgage include:

• Ensuring you are on the electoral roll
• Making sure you do not miss any financial commitments. Missing a credit card or loan payment will count against you
• Reducing your personal debt will enable you to borrow more
• Ensuring you do not apply for credit while a mortgage application is going through
• Keeping pay-slips and P60s
• Checking your credit rating to make sure that you know what your credit score is
• Doing your homework to find out what the lender requires from you.

There are some good options for borrowers looking to remortgage, but rates are more expensive than they were three months ago.

Whether you should remortgage really does depend on the lender that you are with and the type of rate you are on.

If you are on your lender's standard variable rate then there is a danger your bank will raise your rate by more than any Bank of England base rate change.

I would advise you to call your lender to see what they will offer you to stay with them and then research the best rate available to you in the market.

It is still possible to remortgage on to a competitive rate which is lower than the average standard variable rate. Two-year base rate trackers are available from 2.28% and two-year fixed-rate deals start at 3%. Five-year fixed-rate deals are more expensive as they start at 4.39%.

Everything Everywhere gets 4G go-ahead from Ofcom

                                     4G will provide super-fast broadband to mobiles

Telecoms regulator Ofcom has allowed Everything Everywhere, the company behind Orange and T-Mobile in the UK, to use its existing bandwidth to launch fourth-generation (4G) mobile services.

The move means 4G, which allows much faster downloads, could launch in the UK earlier than previously planned.

Ofcom said the move would deliver "significant benefits" to consumers that outweigh any competition concerns.

But Vodafone and O2 expressed surprise and disappointment at the decision.

Ofcom plans to auction 4G bandwidth to other providers next year.

Everything Everywhere will be allowed to offer 4G services from 11 September.

But, as the regulator pointed out, the timing will be a commercial decision for the company itself. The operator has been trialling 4G services at a number of local businesses in Cumbria in the north of England since the end of June.

Ofcom said delaying the mobile operator from launching 4G would be "to the detriment of consumers".

'Hugely disappointed'

Everything Everywhere itself said the regulator's decision was "great news for the UK".

"4G will drive investment, employment and innovation and we look forward to making it available later this year, delivering superfast mobile broadband to the UK," the company said.

The firm's two main competitors in the UK mobile market were less than pleased with the ruling.

They claim that they are disadvantaged as only Everything's spectrum can be reconfigured to handle 4G, while they will have to wait to buy spectrum at an auction next year.

"We are hugely disappointed with today's announcement, which will mean the majority of customers will be excluded from the first wave of digital services," said a spokesperson for O2.

Vodafone was more forthright, saying it was "shocked" at Ofcom's decision.

"The regulator has shown a careless disregard for the best interests of consumers, businesses and the wider economy through its refusal to properly regard the competitive distortion created by allowing one operator to run services before the ground has been laid for a fully competitive 4G market," a company spokesperson said.

Analysts said the two companies were right to be concerned, with the examples of other countries suggesting those network providers that got a head start on their rivals were often able to build successful 4G networks.

"Everything now has a golden opportunity to establish an early lead in the UK's 4G market, but it will only be able to exploit this window if it is able to build a successful launch strategy," said Thomas Wehmeier at Informa Telecoms & Media.

He said much would now depend on the company'

s ability to persuade mobile phone manufacturers to build smartphones capable of working on its 4G network.

Faster downloads

Everything Everywhere has also announced that it will sell some of its 4G spectrum to rival Three.

This was a condition of the European Commission allowing the 2010 merger of Orange and T-Mobile in the UK.

Three's chief executive Dave Dyson said this deal would "more than double the capacity available to customers".

As Everything is not obliged to make the spectrum available until September 2013, this deal will not give Three a head start in launching its own 4G services, however.

Ofcom has issued Everything Everywhere with licences to launch what are called Long-Term Evolution (LTE) services. This is one of a number of broadband technologies that allow the transfer of high-bandwidth data such as video streaming and mapping services.

Other mobile phone networks will be allowed to bid for 4G bandwidth early next year.

The auction will offer the equivalent of three-quarters of the mobile spectrum currently in use - some 80% more than released in the 3G auction which took place in 2000.

Ofcom wants to see at least four wholesalers of 4G mobile services, so that consumers will benefit from better services at lower prices.

The auction will sell chunks of radio spectrum to support 4G, which will allow users to download data such as music and videos at much faster speeds.

Asia's fastest data cable links Tokyo to Singapore

The route for the new cable avoids Taiwan, where earthquakes are common

A new high-speed undersea data cable has opened to traffic in Asia.

The 7,800km Asia Submarine-cable Express (ASE) connects Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines.

It transfers data via an optical fibre system at 40 gigabits per second, and is three milliseconds faster than any other cable between Singapore and Tokyo.

The gain in speed may sound small, but could prove critical to financial trades made out of the region.

So-called "high frequency trades", controlled by computers, involve making what may be hundreds of thousands of transactions in less than a second - all determined by a program that tracks market conditions.

With banks and hedge funds competing against each other, the size of the profit or loss can come down to a matter of beating the competition by a fraction of a second, explained Ralph Silva, a strategist at Silva Research Network.

"High frequency trading is basically computer trading - you program a set of rules and as events happen - the computer decides buy or sell commands," he said.

"As all incoming data is received by all banks at the same time, and because the computers are all the same with the same speed of processors, the length of time the command takes to get to the exchange makes a big difference.

"So if all banks come to the same trading decision at the same time, the one to get the transaction to the master computer first wins.

"Three milliseconds in computer time is an hour in human time."

The route for the new cable was chosen to be as straight as possible, reducing the time to get information from one end to the other to 65 milliseconds.

The data transfer capacity of 40Gbps is the equivalent of downloading a high-resolution DVD in about two seconds.

Avoiding trouble areas

The new facility adds to a web of undersea cables in the waters around Japan.

Many undersea cables were damaged by a powerful earthquake that hit Japan in March 2011

These include ones run by Australian operator Telstra International; Taiwan's largest phone operator Chunghwa Telecom; and the global telecommunications service provider Pacnet, based in Singapore and Hong Kong.

Many were damaged by a powerful earthquake near Japan's northeast coast in March 2011.

An earlier earthquake in December 2006, off the south-west coast of Taiwan, also broke several cables, disrupting telecommunications in Asian countries.

The problems helped influence where the new cable was laid, said Japan's biggest telecommunications provider.

"We avoided the area around Taiwan, where earthquakes are common, and laid the route near the Philippines instead, making the cable very safe and reliable," said Hiroyuki Matsumoto, senior director of network services at NTT, one of the four partners involved in the project.

After 2011's earthquake and tsunami his firm reported that half a million telephone circuits and about 150,000 internet circuits went down in Japan because of subsea cable damage.

To repair the cable network, telecoms operators had to send out ships equipped with remotely controlled robots, able to dive to a depth of 2,500m (8,200ft).

The other companies involved in the project are PLDT, the Philippines' main telecom company; StarHub, the second-largest mobile phone operator in Singapore; and Telekom Malaysia.

PLDT said that the venture was the first direct cable connection between the Philippines and Japan, and "the largest-capacity international submarine cable system ever to land in the Philippines".

Ramadan fasting dilemma when sun never sets

Land of the midnight sun: the day is more than 20 hours long during summer in northern Finland 

Practising Muslims across the world are observing Ramadan. For one month, they are fasting between sunrise and sunset. But what do Muslims do in a town where the sun never really goes down?

The town of Rovaniemi in Finland lies in a land of extremes.

At 66 degrees north it straddles the Arctic Circle in Finnish Lapland. During midwinter it is cloaked in total darkness. But in the summer it is bathed in daylight.

The long days pose a particular problem for fasting Muslims like Shah Jalal Miah Masud.

The 28-year-old moved to Rovaniemi - 830km (515 mile) north of the capital, Helsinki - from Bangladesh five years ago to study IT. He has not had any food or water for 21 hours. And he laughs.

"It doesn't get dark. It always looks like the same, the sun is always on the horizon and it's quite difficult to get what the time is actually right now," he says.

It is 11 o'clock in the evening and the sun has only just dipped below the horizon. The sky has turned a beautiful deep, rich blue. This is as dark as it will get, then the sun will rise again in five hours.

Masud says it is difficult to fast according to Finnish time and admits he is tired. But despite the hunger and fatigue, he says it is a pleasure to observe Ramadan during the long Finnish days.

There is another option which reduces the number of fasting hours - mark its duration by the rising and setting of the sun in countries far to the south of Finland. Dr Abdul Mannan - a local Imam and president of the Islam Society of Northern Finland - says there are two schools of thought.

"The Egyptian scholars say that if the days are long - more than 18 hours - then you can follow the Mecca time or Medina time, or the nearest Muslim country time," says Dr Mannan.

"The other (point of view) from the Saudi scholars says whatever the day is - long or short - you have to follow the local time."

                                    Nafisa Yeasmin follows the Mecca timetable

Dr Mannan says the majority of Muslims in northern Finland observe either Mecca's fasting hours or Turkish time because it is the nearest Muslim country to Finland.

For Nafisa Yeasmin, a researcher at the University of Lapland, choosing when to fast has not been an easy decision. She moved from Dhaka in Bangladesh six years ago with her husband and two children.

Her spacious Scandinavian-style kitchen - full of white cupboards and wooden work surfaces - smells of frying onions, turmeric, chilli and cumin.

As she prepares her traditional iftar meal, she recalls her first Ramadan in Rovaniemi when she decided to fast according to Finnish daylight hours, going without food for up to 20 hours a day.

"It was very difficult to follow because in Bangladesh we are used to 12 hours' daytime and 12 hours' night-time," she says.

Ramadan: most sacred month in Islam

• Muslims abstain from food and drink while fasting during daylight hours
• Ramadan is intended to increase self-control
• Muslims try to give up bad habits and pray more during the holy month
• Families and friends often gather to break the fast after sunset with the iftar meal

"Then I thought, not any more. I have to follow Mecca's timetable. But I'm a little bit worried whether Allah will accept it or not."

Many Muslims come to Finland as refugees from all over the world, particularly Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan. Since 2001, Finland has accepted 750 refugees a year. New arrivals are often sent to live in towns like Rovaniemi in the far north in a government resettlement programmes.

In Rovaniemi the long days are not the only obstacle that fasting Muslims face.

No shop in this town of 60,000 sells halal food, which is prepared according to Islamic law. The nearest town, Oulu, that does is 300km away. Another option is Lulea, across the border in Sweden.

Yeasmin opts for Lulea, which is a six-hour round trip journey by car, with a shopping list full of items, including black chickpeas, dates, rice crackers and lots of halal meat.

Understandably, she has stocked up for the whole month of Ramadan. To make her point, she opens her huge white fridge - covered in her children's school photos - to reveal all seven trays crammed full of frozen halal meat.

HSBC pulls ultra-low 2.99%, five-year, mortgage deal

                                HSBC won't say how many applicants were successful

HSBC has withdrawn the 2.99%, five-year, mortgage deal which it launched just a month ago.

The bank has used up all the money it had allocated to fund the record low-rate deal.

Borrowers from HSBC will still be able to apply for home loans for the same length of time, but at the slightly higher rate of interest of 3.29%.

The bank refused to say how much money it had lent at 2.99%, or how many people had applied successfully.

"There has been fantastic demand," said a spokeswoman.

"It was a very popular product."

Other lends to offer similar deals were the RBS group (including NatWest), Santander and the Nationwide.

They were encouraged to lend at such low levels by the prospect of being able to obtain cheap funds from the Bank of England, under its recently launched Funding for Lending scheme.

Typically the ultra-cheap loans required borrowers to put down a 40% deposit, which put them out of reach of most first-time buyers.

The loan from HSBC had a fee of £1,495.

Ray Boulger of mortgage broker John Charcol said: "I suspect it has been withdrawn because the cost of borrowing funds in the wholesale markets has gone up a bit in the past week or so."

Bolt sprints from UK tax authorities

The world's fastest man will not compete on UK soil again until the British Government taxes him less. Usain Bolt - he earnt around £12.7m last year - could see his £12.5m Puma sponsorship deal taxed at the 50% higher tax rate were he to compete in Britain in future.

Is the Jamaican - he avoided running in the UK for three years until the Olympics - right to challenge HMRC?

Taxman races Bolt

HMRC claims that Jamaican Bolt (and others foreign athletes like him) should not just be taxed on their winnings but also on a proportion of their sponsorship earnings - their wider earnings, in other words. Especially in the current climate and with a shrinking UK tax base generally.

But the Olympics was a tax-free event for the triple gold medalist (and others) as the Government switched the tax rules - with some pressure from the International Olympic Committee - to create some concessions. (There were other concessions too for the Champions League Final at Wembley.)

£9bn space to perform

British taxpayers, on the other hand, did not complain much about coughing up the £9bn to give Bolt the space to perform at the Olympics. And without that space, little opportunity to showcase sponsorship. Bolt, remember, is not just an athlete: running is what the 25-year-old does for a job (and is very well paid for being the best in world at it).

"As soon as the law changes I'll be here all the time," Bolt is quoted in the Express: "I love being here, I have so many Jamaican fans here and it's wonderful."

Bolt has previously spurned UK sporting events because of the personal tax impact. In 2010 he turned down the chance of a UK three-way fight between himself, Asafa Powell and Tyson Gay. According to Celebrity Networth, the athlete's net worth rings in at $30m.

Nadal support

Bolt has supporters on the tax issue. Spanish-born Rafa Nadal has also complained of the UK tax system (though Spain could equally do with tax revenues currently).

Should HMRC be more accommodating to big-name athletes? Or do you agree with their approach? Let us know in the comments.

Hypersonic jet Waverider fails Mach 6 test

The Waverider's engine was supposed to have ignited four seconds after it was released

The US Air Force has said an attempt to fly its hypersonic jet Waverider at Mach 6 (3,600mph; 5795km/h) failed.

The unmanned aircraft had been designed to fly at six times the speed of sound after being dropped from a B-52 bomber.
But officials said that a faulty control fin prevented it from starting its supersonic-combustion ramjet engine, and the craft was lost.
It marks the second time in a row that the Air Force has been unable to test the technology as planned.
The latest attempt had sought to fly at its maximum speed for five minutes.
But a spokesman said that a problem was recognised 16 seconds after a rocket booster was triggered to increase its velocity, ahead of the scramjet engine being started.
Hypersonic disappointment When the rocket unit detached 15 seconds later the X-51A craft lost control and broke apart, falling into the Pacific Ocean north-west of Los Angeles.
"It is unfortunate that a problem with this subsystem caused a termination before we could light the scramjet engine," Charlie Brink, of the Air Force Research Laboratory at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, said in a statement.
"All our data showed we had created the right conditions for engine ignition and we were very hopeful to meet our test objectives."
The previous test aircraft was also lost to the Pacific after it was unable to restart its engine.
But the original test flight, in 2010, flew at five times the speed of sound for three minutes.
The Pentagon - which helped fund the project - has been testing hypersonic technologies in an effort to develop faster missiles.
It has also been suggested the research could eventually help build a commercial plane with the promise of London to New York trips taking as little as an hour, or Tokyo to Paris journeys slightly more than double that time.
For now only one X-51A vehicle remains and the Air Force has not yet decided whether to organise a fourth test.