Money, in brief

The US Education Department is moving borrowers off SAVE, a Biden-era plan that set student-loan payments by income. [1] A court struck the plan down in March. [5]

About 7.5 million borrowers were on SAVE, and 1.5 million of them had chosen a new plan by mid-September. [3]

Each borrower gets 90 days to choose. [2] Anyone who does not choose is put on a standard or tiered plan, the two most expensive options. [2]

The first deadline passed on 29 September, and borrowers then got a 30-day 'final notice'. [2] In early October more borrowers reported getting it before their own deadline. [1]

On a standard plan, a SAVE borrower's payment would rise from about 3% to about 12% of take-home pay, the JPMorgan Chase Institute estimates. [1]

The new Repayment Assistance Plan sets payments at 1% to 10% of a borrower's total income, with a 10-dollar minimum. [5] It can run for 30 years. [6]

Older plans that set payments by income cancel what is left after 20 or 25 years of payments. [5]

The 2025 law behind the changes also ended the right to pause payments while out of work. [6]

About 9.3 million federal student borrowers were in default at the end of June, up from 6.2 million in 2016. [6]

Default can mean wages taken straight from a pay packet and federal benefits seized. [2]

Sarah Sharer Curley, a former US bankruptcy judge, says bankruptcy filings will most likely rise. [7] More than 500,000 personal bankruptcy cases were filed in 2025, almost 50% more than three years before. [7]

Student loans are nearly impossible to wipe out in bankruptcy, she says, and a 73-year-old in her court owed more than 584,000 dollars. [7]

The department also gave borrowers until the end of December to sign up for automatic payments. [2] Paying that way takes one percentage point off the interest rate. [2]

Why it matters. Watch how many of the roughly 6 million borrowers still on SAVE choose a plan before their final notice runs out, and whether the default count rises as bills restart. [1][3]

Borrowers in Public Service Loan Forgiveness, a US scheme that cancels the student debt of government and non-profit workers after 120 monthly payments, say recent payments are not being counted. [9] A notice from Federal Student Aid, the agency that runs the loans, said the counts were paused because of data problems. [9] Some borrowers have made their 120th payment and are still waiting. [9] At the end of April, 88,000 requests to buy back missed months were also waiting. [9]

Why it matters. A borrower can ask to stop paying while they wait, but interest keeps growing during that pause. [9] Business Insider reported the paused counts on 8 October, and the department did not answer its questions. [9]

Ministers in England plan to make employers pay a quarter of the cost of training an apprentice aged 25 or over, the Guardian reports. [10] Large firms already pay 0.5% of their wage bill into a training pot, the 4-billion-pound-a-year growth and skills levy, and can spend it on apprentices of any age. [10] Under the plan the pot would pay the full cost for 16- to 24-year-olds, but only 75% for older apprentices. [10] It could start in September 2027. [10]

Why it matters. More than half of new apprenticeships now go to over-25s, while starts by young people have fallen 40% in a decade. [10] The plan pushes firms towards young recruits, and makes training an older worker cost them more. [10]

Resident doctors in Northern Ireland will walk out for 24 hours on Friday 20 November, and consultants will run a much smaller service the next Monday. [13] They are owed a 3.5% pay rise that an independent body recommended and the health minister, Robbie Butler, accepted. [13] It cannot be paid because the Northern Ireland Executive, its devolved government, has no budget seven months into the year. [13] The Royal College of Nursing has opened a strike vote too. [13]

Why it matters. The Executive says it faces about 1.6 billion pounds of extra costs this year, against a UK government offer of about 525 million. [13] Public-sector pay alone needs about 500 million, and Chris Bryant, the UK's Northern Ireland secretary, says emergency money runs out in January. [13]

Britain's 15-billion-pound warm homes plan would insulate up to 5 million homes and cut household energy bills by about 1 billion pounds a year, says E3G, a climate think tank. [12] Most of that saving would go to households on low incomes, it says. [12] The plan is under threat of cuts as ministers look for savings. [12] E3G puts its jobs at about 50,000, against about 1,100 for the Rosebank oil field off Shetland, which ministers have yet to decide on. [12]

Why it matters. Oil and gas from a new UK field are sold on world markets, so experts say they would not lower UK fuel bills. [12] Britain's energy department declined to comment on the plan's future. [12]

More people in Britain are buying a fixed-term annuity, which pays a guaranteed income for a set number of years and then a lump sum, the Guardian reports. [11] An annuity is bought with a pension pot, and most buyers choose one that pays until they die. [11] Standard Life said this week that a 62-year-old with 100,000 pounds could get about 13,800 pounds a year for five years, then 50,000 pounds back. [11] Canada Life reports a significant rise in demand. [11]

Why it matters. That income is more than the full new state pension of 12,548 pounds, which starts at 66 and at 67 from April 2028. [11] From April 2027, money left in most private pensions at death can count towards inheritance tax, and the Guardian says that change has helped annuities sell. [11]

Typical US home loan rates were 7.37% last week, HousingWire, a US housing news site, reports. [15] It was 6.64% in mid-July and rose as high as 7.60%. [15] Applications to buy a home were 16% lower than a year earlier. [15] Pending sales were 51,947 in the week, against 59,775 a year before. [15] 43% of homes for sale had a price cut, against 41% a year earlier. [15]

Why it matters. The gap between home loan rates and the US government's 10-year borrowing cost is 2.21 points, against a usual 1.60 to 1.80, which keeps loans dearer. [15] HousingWire says rates could fall below 7% by the holidays only if the Iran war and oil prices calm and US job numbers weaken. [15]

Which?, a UK consumer group, asked ChatGPT where popular products were cheapest, and it named the right shop and amount for only eight of them. [14] In 68% of cases the answer had at least one problem, such as a wrong price or a different product. [14] It said a Lenovo Chromebook cost 399 pounds, when the lowest price Which? could find was 599 pounds. [14] OpenAI, which makes ChatGPT, said the prices in its first listings may not be the lowest available. [14]

Why it matters. In a Which? survey of 1,078 people, 32% said they use AI chatbots for shopping, with the autumn sales coming. [14] A shopper who trusts the first answer can pay more, or skip a product wrongly shown as too dear. [14]

A cut-price vet clinic run by the RSPCA, an animal charity, treated 160 pets in its first 11 days in Medway, in Kent. [16] It is for pet owners on low incomes or benefits, who pay less than a normal vet would charge. [16] The branch says its animal centres are full, and some people give up pets they cannot afford to keep. [16] Its pet food bank has handed out 18,909 food items this year. [16]

Why it matters. Owners told the BBC they would go without food themselves before their pets did, so a vet bill lands on the family's food budget. [16] Treating pets at home also keeps them out of the charity's full centres. [16]

Two people accused of serial squatting have been removed from a house in Bayside, in Queens, New York, now listed at 915,000 dollars, Realtor.com reports. [17] The owner died in 2018 with a large reverse mortgage, a loan against a home that is repaid when the owner dies or sells. [17] Nobody told the county office that handles such estates, and a Covid-era pause on evictions held up the bank's attempt to take the house back. [17] Both deny burglary and other charges. [17]

Why it matters. Neighbours say it took more than two years and a congressman's help to get them out. [17] The county office says hospitals and funeral homes no longer reliably report deaths to it, and this house sat empty for years. [17]

Car loans owed in Pakistan rose to 407 billion rupees in September, from 393.3 billion in August, figures from the State Bank of Pakistan, the country's central bank, show. [18] It was the 22nd monthly rise in a row, Dawn, a Pakistani newspaper, reports. [18] Sales of cars, SUVs, pickups and vans still fell 12% from a year earlier, to 15,104. [18] Pakistan's central bank held its main interest rate at 11.5% on 14 September. [18]

Why it matters. Topline Securities, a Karachi investment firm, says Pakistan's central bank may raise that rate by half a point because oil and food prices are high. [18] Car loans follow the interest rate, so a rise would make each new loan dearer, and Topline expects car lending to grow more slowly. [18]