Money, in brief

Britain's government will make subscriptions easier to cancel from January 2027, three months earlier than the spring date announced in April. [1]

Andy Burnham, Britain's prime minister, said companies will have to give clearer information up front, send regular reminders, and provide a much easier exit from contracts. [1]

The Department for Business and Trade, the UK government department behind the rules, counts 10 million unwanted subscriptions still running in Britain, out of 155 million active ones. [1][2]

More than 3.5 million people were quietly rolled from a free or discounted trial into a fully priced contract, and another 1.3 million were caught by a renewal they did not expect. [1][3]

The UK government put the saving at 400m pounds a year in total, or up to 170 pounds a person, on the estimate it published in April. [1]

A subscription is one agreement that charges again on a schedule. The company is paid next month without asking anyone anything. [2]

Only the customer can stop it, and stopping it is a separate job from starting it, done on pages the company built. [2][6]

Neha, 50, paid an online CV service for a single download and found more than 500 pounds gone from a joint account two years later. [4]

Andrew Leigh, Australia's assistant minister for competition, has proposed the same rule there, and his test is whether a subscription can be stopped by the process that started it. [6]

In September 2025 the US Federal Trade Commission took Amazon to trial over Prime sign-ups and a cancellation path that staff inside the company called Iliad. [7]

A consultation this autumn decides how the UK measures are actually implemented. [1]

Why it matters. Watch the autumn consultation, because it decides whether an easier exit means a cancel button on the same screen as the sign-up or a form and a waiting period.

Britain's Financial Conduct Authority requires an insurer to offer at least every method of cancelling an automatic renewal that it offers for buying a new policy. [8] The rule has applied to most general insurance since January 2022, covering home, motor and travel cover, but not private medical or pet insurance. [8] Longer waits on the cancellation line than on the sales line count as an unnecessary barrier, as do extra questions before a cancellation can be confirmed. [8] Cancelling must be free, and available at any point in the policy. [8]

Why it matters. Britain's new subscription rules promise the same thing for every contract, five years after this rulebook set it out for one industry. [8][1]

The same regulator bans an insurer from setting a renewal price higher than what it would quote an equivalent new customer for the same cover. [9] The test is applied at the moment the renewal notice is prepared. [9] For a bundled home and motor package, the home part, the motor part and the bundled price must each pass it separately. [9] Individually negotiated new-customer discounts have to be counted in, so a firm cannot quietly hold a cheaper price back for newcomers. [9]

Why it matters. It prices the customer who does nothing at the level of the customer who shops around, which is the opposite of how a subscription works. [9][1]

A 2026 study by LexisNexis, a data firm that supplies insurers, found 47% of car insurance policies in force in the United States had been shopped at least once in the previous twelve months. [10] Shopping is not moving: a driver can collect quotes and stay. [10] Insurers send a renewal notice a few weeks before the policy period ends, which is when a price change becomes visible. [10] A policy can be changed at any time, not only at renewal. [10]

Why it matters. Nearly half of US drivers collected another quote inside a year, and the renewal notice is the moment a price rise becomes visible. [10][9]

In the United States a certificate of deposit locks money away for a fixed term at a fixed rate. [11] When the term ends the saver gets a grace period, generally one to two weeks and sometimes as short as seven to ten days, to take the money out without an early withdrawal penalty. [11] Miss that window and the bank normally opens a new certificate of the same length, at whatever rate it is paying that week. [11] A five-year certificate becomes another five-year certificate. [11]

Why it matters. The saver chose a term once, in one week of one year, and the bank repeats that choice at a rate the saver never saw. [11]

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the United States' consumer-finance regulator, says a person can withdraw permission for a company to take automatic payments from a bank account even after having allowed them. [12] Its guidance is to tell the company and then the bank, in writing both times. [12] Once permission is revoked, any further payment taken by that company is an error the bank can refund. [12] Banks generally charge a fee for a formal stop payment order. [12]

Why it matters. The way out runs through a third party, and the third party charges for it. [12]

In September 2025 the US Federal Trade Commission took Amazon to trial over its Prime membership, then priced at $139 a year. [7] The complaint, filed in June 2023, said sign-up buttons were prominent while the link to decline was small, and that the price and the automatic renewal often sat in fine print. [7] It also said the cancellation process was deliberately complex, and that staff called it Iliad, after Homer's poem about a very long war. [7] The case was heard in a federal court in Seattle by Judge John Chun. [7]

Why it matters. The complaint says Amazon knew about unwanted sign-ups and resisted changes that would have cut them, because those changes cut revenue. [7]

Australia's federal government has announced a plan to ban subscription traps and hidden fees, which are not currently illegal there. [6] The Consumer Policy Research Centre, an Australian consumer research body, found three in four Australians with subscriptions had a bad experience trying to cancel one. [6] Andrew Leigh, the assistant minister for competition, pointed to cancellations that take 28 days to take effect, and to screens that ask a customer to reconsider several times over. [6] He calls the last one confirm shaming. [6]

Why it matters. Two governments on opposite sides of the world reached for the same rule in the same year. [6][1]

National Trading Standards, which coordinates consumer-protection enforcement across Britain, has said more than 20 million UK adults signed up to a subscription without realising it. [2] About 4.7 million are still paying for one they did not knowingly agree to. [2] Barclays, one of Britain's largest banks, puts individual subscription spending at 50.60 pounds a month, so more than 600 pounds a year, and nearly 50% higher than in 2020. [2] Around 69% of UK households pay for at least one video streaming service. [2]

Why it matters. The UK government's 10 million unwanted subscriptions and this 4.7 million unknowing ones are counting different things, and both figures are in circulation. [1][2]

The Securities and Exchange Commission, which regulates US investment markets, proposed a rule in July 2026 called Regulation E-Delivery. [13] It would let firms send fund documents, shareholder reports and proxy materials to investors electronically without first getting their agreement. [13] Today a firm must get agreement before going electronic, and under the proposal an investor who wants paper would have to ask for it. [13] The proposal was published on 21 July 2026 and comments closed on 21 September 2026. [13]

Why it matters. Whether a document arrives at all decides whether it is read, and this proposal moves that setting from the investor to the firm. [13]

The Financial Conduct Authority published final rules in April 2026 for what it calls targeted support. [14] Firms may offer suggestions designed for groups of people who share the same circumstances, rather than personal advice built around one customer. [14] The regime went live on 6 April 2026, and firms could apply for permission from 2 March 2026. [14] The regulator says it is meant to reach millions of people, and published joint statements with the Financial Ombudsman Service and the UK data regulator on complaints and marketing. [14]

Why it matters. It changes what a pension firm is allowed to say to a customer without that counting as personal advice. [14]

The Financial Conduct Authority surveyed eight large workplace pension providers in January 2026 about their default funds, the fund a saver lands in when they make no investment choice. [15] Combined with a parallel survey of master trust schemes by the pensions regulator, the data covers 468 billion pounds of default assets as at 31 December 2025. [15] Across the two, 84.6% of the money is invested outside the UK and 89.9% is in shares and bonds. [15] Cash and other holdings come to 2.7%. [15]

Why it matters. Most people enrolled automatically never choose a fund, so this mix is the real investment decision for millions of British savers. [15]

Under the same regulator's rules, a firm running a personal pension outside the workplace must send a cash warning when more than a quarter of the pot sits in cash-like investments and inflation is likely to eat it. [16] The warning has to include a worked example of what inflation does to a 10,000 pound cash pot over ten years at 0% interest. [16] It must also tell the saver to consider whether their current investments will grow enough for what they want. [16]

Why it matters. Money parked in cash is what happens when nobody chooses, and this rule treats that silence as something to interrupt. [16][15]

The Pensions Commission, an expert group first set up in 2002 and revived by the UK government, said in an interim report in May 2026 that 15 million people are not saving adequately for retirement. [17] Without action it put the figure as high as 19 million. [17] It found as many as 45% of working-age adults are paying into no pension at all, and that just 4% of self-employed workers contribute. [17] It warned that tomorrow's retirees risk being worse off than today's. [17]

Why it matters. Automatic enrolment only reaches people who have an employer, and the self-employed do not have one. [17]

Around half of people born between 1997 and 2012 say they do not expect the UK state pension to exist by the time they retire. [18] Joel, an engineer in his early twenties in London, has just started a graduate job. [18] He is putting the extra money into his workplace pension rather than saving for a house deposit, because he does not expect a state pension. [18] The UK state pension currently pays 12,548 pounds a year. [23] Even in the richest fifth of retirees it supplies about 30% of a single person's income. [23]

Why it matters. A belief about a payment more than forty years away is changing what a person in their early twenties does with this month's pay. [18]

In the United States an employer can enrol staff into a workplace retirement plan automatically, cutting a set share of wages unless the worker says no. [20] One version of it must apply the same default percentage to everyone it covers, after a required notice. [28] A worker can take those contributions back out, but only inside a window the plan chooses, between 30 and 90 days of the first deduction. [19] Doing so forfeits any employer match on them, and the forfeited money stays with the plan. [19]

Why it matters. The exit exists, it is short, and using it costs the worker money the employer had already put in. [19]

The US tax authority runs a Retirement Savings Contributions Credit, usually called the Saver's Credit, for people on lower incomes who pay into a retirement account. [21] It is worth 50%, 20% or 10% of eligible contributions, with the highest rate going to the lowest incomes. [21] The agency's own example has Jill, a shop worker whose joint income after her deduction is $39,000, claiming $1,000 back on a $2,000 contribution. [21] Money moved from one retirement account to another does not count. [21]

Why it matters. It is claimed on a form rather than applied automatically, so it reaches the people who file for it. [21]

A 44-year-old woman in Britain, known as Ms C, cares full-time for her disabled mother. [22] She was told this May that the Department for Work and Pensions had written to her employer, asking it to deduct an old universal credit overpayment from her salary. [22] A judge had dismissed that overpayment in 2022. [22] Officials said they had no record of the tribunal decision and asked her to post them a copy. [22] She asked her employer not to pay her wages that month to stop the money being taken. [22]

Why it matters. A review of carer overpayments blamed outdated computer systems, poor internal communication and weak access to records. [22]

The Pensions Policy Institute, a UK research body, puts the median pension wealth of a 43-year-old woman who has a pension at all at 46,000 pounds, against more than 77,000 pounds for a man. [23] Heidi Karjalainen, an economist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, attributes most of the gap to career breaks, usually to look after young children. [23] Separately, Financial Conduct Authority figures show people with pots above 250,000 pounds take out a median of 3.8% a year. [23]

Why it matters. A workplace pension takes a share of pay, so years out of paid work are years the machine does not run. [23][17]

Frontier Airlines, a low-cost US carrier, sells a membership called Discount Den that lets members book cheaper fares, often about $30 less each way. [24] It costs $109.99 in the first year, which is a $59.99 annual fee plus a $50 enrollment fee, and $59.99 a year after that. [24] It renews automatically for another year unless the member cancels before the final day of the current term. [24]

Why it matters. The fee does not buy a flight. It buys the right to book at the member price, and it renews by itself. [24]

Neha, 50, paid an online CV service called LiveCareer to download one document. [4] Two years later she found more than 500 pounds had left the account she shares with her husband, and the company cancelled but refused a refund. [4] Chris Fell, a 71-year-old photographer in Wiltshire, said a photo-portfolio service doubled in price and would not cancel, so he had his bank kill his debit card. [1] Sophie Branscombe, 23, was charged 89.99 pounds when a free trial ended, and got it back through Apple. [5]

Why it matters. The exits people found were a bank, a new card number and an app store, rather than the company they were paying. [1][4][5]

Alongside the subscription measures, Burnham said Britain will outlaw shops advertising a fake previous price to make a discount look bigger, including invented was-prices and misleading recommended retail prices. [1] Using a false was-price is already unlawful, but it is not on the Competition and Markets Authority's list of automatically banned practices, where no harm has to be proved. [1] The underlying law, the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act, passed in 2024 under the previous government and also covered hidden fees and fake reviews. [1] Some charity, cultural and heritage memberships are excluded from the subscription rules. [3]

Why it matters. Putting a practice on the banned list changes who has to prove what, which is usually the part that decides whether a rule bites. [1]

The Financial Conduct Authority consulted until 12 February 2026 on three parts of its pension rulebook. [27] They are how projections in online calculators are governed, how a pot moves from one workplace-style pension to another, and the rules for self-invested personal pensions. [27] The paper followed more than 40 responses to an earlier discussion in December 2024. [27] It sits alongside a Pension Schemes Bill, a value-for-money framework for default workplace schemes, the targeted support regime and pensions dashboards. [27]

Why it matters. Moving a pension is the exit from a default fund, and how long it takes is set by the firm being left. [27][15]

Researchers at Brookings, a US policy institute, found that income guaranteed for life made up just over half the total income of Americans aged 65 and over in the early 2000s. [26] By 2022 that share had fallen to about 43%. [26] Private annuities, contracts that pay an income until death, are barely part of it: only about 6% of older Americans receive anything from one. [26] Fewer than 10% of workplace plans offer an annuity inside the plan. [26]

Why it matters. A pot of savings hands the job of not running out of money to the person who owns it. [26]

In the United States the Department of Labor sets the ground rules for the default investment of workers who never pick one, and those defaults are most often target-date funds, which move out of shares as a saver gets older. [29] Brookings notes the department has switched position between administrations on whether non-financial factors such as climate change may be weighed in designing a plan's investment menu. [29] Its current proposal would let a plan include alternative assets, provided the people running it follow a documented evaluation. [29]

Why it matters. The default is not a market outcome. It is a rule, and it changes when the US administration does. [29][15]

The average rate on a 30-year fixed US mortgage rose to 6.74% on Wednesday 9 September 2026, according to figures Zillow supplied to NerdWallet. [25] That is nine hundredths of a percentage point above Tuesday, and level with a week earlier. [25] The move was put down to renewed fighting involving Iran, which pushed oil prices up and weakened the bond market that mortgage rates track. [25]

Why it matters. What a house costs to borrow against moved because of a war, without anyone in the mortgage market deciding anything. [25]