Pic by mnem

Swirling winds, rugged landscapes and hillsides covered in heather are epitomised as the symbols of Scottishness by Scotch whisky companies, but this image is predicted to have a detrimental effect on the industry over the next five years.

The Dark Spirits report by market researchers Mintel has predicted that UK sales will drop 10% by 2016 because the current images of “heather and weather” is off-putting to younger drinkers. There’s a much greater sense of ceremony with Scotch, partly because they think it should be drunk neat compared to imported US whiskies which are more commonly mixed with the likes of cola or ginger ale.

Thanks to a spike in demand in emerging markets such as Brazil and Japan, exports have risen by 60% over the last 10 years, but in the UK sales have been falling.

There has been a general decline in alcohol sales in the UK, but the report suggests that Scotch is being hit particularly hard due to its image. It is often seen as a drink for dad, so despite some more up-to-date marketing campaigns from whisky companies, contemporary packaging, and attempts to target younger shoppers, its antiquated image could still see it lose more than £300m over the next five years.

Younger drinkers and women generally prefer drinks with a sweeter, more approachable flavour profile, but in 2010 a survey by ASDA found that 33% of the supermarket’s female shoppers were buying whisky, and that 60% of the women question had developed a taste for it through their husbands. More than half were also choosing to drink it neat, helping to partly dispel the male-dominated stereotype.

A senior drinks analyst for Mintel has said that major brands such as Glenfiddich and Talisker, which are owned by drinks giant Diageo, “have been guilty of focusing on ‘heather and weather’ imagery rather than more personable identity projected by the likes of bourbon import, Jack Daniel’s. Such a focus is far from emotionally engaging and feels somewhat tired.”

According to the report, overall UK whisky sales will fall from £2.55bn to £2.25bn by 2016 with Scotch bearing most of the brunt, while the sale of US imports such as bourbon are actually bucking the trend by showing a growth in sales.

There may be tough time ahead for the UK market, but a report last month by the SWA (Scotch Whisky Association) showed a 22% increase in exports for the first half of 2011, a surge which is a direct contribution to the Scottish government’s target of a 50% increase by 2017. This overall increase is the result of a burgeoning market in Asia which rose by 33% to £423m, and in Central and South America exports leapt nearly 50% to £214m. The world’s two biggest Scotch markets, the US and France, rose 14% to £268m, and 13% to £220m respectively.

Do you think the Scotch whisky industry needs a makeover? Go to our comments section below and tell us what you think would make it more appealing.

So, what can you do to make sure that you’re not one of those unnecessarily lining the coffers of your credit card company? During this current round of postal strikes there are two risks – firstly, you may not receive your statement as usual but it’s unlikely that credit card companies are going to be too sympathetic if you subsequently don’t make your minimum payment or make it late. They will argue that the onus is on you to ensure that your payment is made on time so the sensible thing to do is to take a pro-active stance and either telephone your card company for details of your minimum payment or alternatively go online to access your statement.

A second risk is faced by the millions of customers who send a cheque for payment through the post. If you usually post your cheque then it would be sensible to adopt an alternative payment method whilst this situation lasts. You can either make payment through your bank (you will find details of how to do this on the reverse of an old statement) or, if you use online banking, you should be able to transfer the money direct. At least that way you take away the risk and ensure that you avoid any additional charges.

And don’t forget that late payment charges are not exclusive to credit cards. Many utility companies, including BT, impose penalties for late payment. With this in mind it could now be a good time to consider setting up a direct debit for the payment of regular bills. This not only ensures that you avoid the risk of late payment charges but in many cases you will also be eligible for a discount if you’re prepared to pay by this method. For example British Gas is quoting discounts of up to £68 p.a. for paying by direct debit.”

After tussling with my local bank recently, I can testify that there are in fact more annoying things, than “being penalised by your credit card company for paying your bill a couple of days late”, however it is extremely irritating and it is definitely worth pointing out that even if you don’t receive your statement, that will not stop your bank, credit card, or utility provider wanting payment, so whilst the postal strike may at first seem like a simple nuisance, delaying a delivery from Amazon, it could actually cost you dearly if you don’t pay attention.

The Which? survey found that 85% of consumers who demanded a refund were at least partly successful in their efforts to reclaim charges back from the bank.

“Claiming back unfair bank charges is a simple process that won’t take up hours of your time,” said Emma Bandey of Which?

“If your bank does not co-operate, you should refer the case to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) as so far the banks have chosen to settle all cases referred to FOS,” she added.

Despite the fact that most charges can be easily reclaimed following a simple quick phone call, it seems that currently only a third of people who believe that they may have been overcharged actually request that the charges be repaid.

The survey which covered 2,228 adults found that some were scared of their bank’s reaction if they asked for a refund.

To make the process easier and help consumers to reclaim money that is rightfully theirs, Which? has for the last 10 months been calling for current account providers to take a new approach to the way consumers are charged when they slip into unauthorised overdraft. They have also added consumer information and legal rights details to their site along with template letters to send to credit card and current account providers, in order to empower consumers to effectively challenge any unfair charges which have been levied.

Over the past year, in part thanks to increased consumer awareness, the banks in the UK have received a deluge of complaints regarding the excessive charges which have been added to their accounts for slightly exceeding authorised borrowing limits.

While the banks are allowed to recoup their administrative costs for unauthorised borrowing, they are not allowed to impose the exorbitant punitive fees which are currently commonplace.

Which? lists some of the banks’ more common “Dodgy practices” as:

• Banks automatically charge (normally around £30) if you slip into unauthorised overdraft, even if the amount of the unauthorised overdraft is just a few pounds.
• Banks may charge a higher rate of interest on your unauthorised overdraft than they do on your regular, authorised overdraft. However, we have found that some banks charge the higher rate on the full amount you are overdrawn. For example, if you have an account with a £250 arranged overdraft and you accidentally go £1 over, you could be charged the higher unauthorised overdraft interest rate on the full overdraft of £251.
• If you slip into unauthorised overdraft you won’t just be charged for going into the red. You could also be charged a similar amount each time a transaction, direct debit or standing order goes through your account while you are in the red.
• Banks do not give you any grace period in which to pay off the amount of your unauthorised overdraft before they charge you.

As customers have complained that the charges are far too high to possibly present a fair reflection of the actual administrative cost they are therefore illegal. This is something that the banking industry refutes, however none of the banks have yet decided to go to court in order to contest any refund claims, preferring instead to settle out of court, with offers of full or partial repayment.

One organisation who have been involved in claims for bank refund, Consumer Action Group, has stated that so far it knows of 6,342 people who have been repaid a combined total of more than £9m by their banks.

The moral of the story: if you don’t ask, you don’t get.

If you think that you have been unfairly charged, it is definitely worth spending a few minutes to download one of the free draft reclaim letters, from websites such as those of the BBC, Which?, or any of the other campaigning consumer organisations or legal firms. As the Which? report shows, just by phoning up or sending off one of these letters to the banks can lead to you getting back your £20-30. Better in your pocket than in theirs.

I phoned the card company to enquire why there had been such a large hike in the interest rate, and was told that there was an across the board increase going on. After querying this and stating that 17.9% was already very high and 24.9% was completely over the top, and that I wanted to cancel the card, I was then immediately offered another rate for the same card of just 7.9%. That is a 17% reduction on the overall APR!!

The moral of this story is that with competition for your business within the finance industry as fierce as it currently is, if you start to press the suppliers, you can often get them to make some large concessions, and maybe save a lot of money.

Yahoo and MSN have been offering similar services for some time. All the more similar due to at least one key ex-Yahoo! Finance member of staff, Katie Stanton, being involved with the new Google project.

Building on the existing Google News and Google Blog Search, this Google service allows you to get back news and blog search results related to companies listed in the finance area, although this is currently only covering companies in North America, however Google has said that it plans to expand “very quickly” to other countries and regions of the world in the future, although there’s no rollout timetable planned yet.

Many commentators feel a little let down by the new offering, as it does not appear to present much of an extension over the sevices offered by its more established competitors, with the possible exception of the Stock Charts With News Events and Interactive Stock Chart Timetables functions, however, there are already plans to release targeted discussion groups for various companies, based on the existing Google Groups service, and there is a large amount of scope for future integration with Googles other services.

Although the initial release may not be the all encompassing service that many were looking for, if there is one thing that Google does not lack at present, it is vision. Expect this service to get some major developments as the roll outs increase.

And finally a quick message from the big one with scales

Two days later, post arrives from the bank. You open it up thinking it’s a statement, or important info regarding the account, only to find it is a wad of un-asked-for credit card cheques. Straight in the shredder.

A few days later,….

It is like entering the banks equivalent of groundhog day. Every time you destroy one set of cheques, these wretched things reappear with some chirpy letter about how you can use them to pay off another credit card, book a holiday, or some other fatuous way build up greater levels of debt.

The problems are not only that these cheques are completely unwanted, have never been requested, and require effort on the customers part to be rid of them each time to prevent them being fraudulently used by someone else, but if you were to believe the chirpy letter and use one thinking it is the same as spending on the credit card, you would be in for another unwelcome shock.

Not only are there additional charges that get added, but there is no interest free period with them, and you also don’t get the same degree of protection as you do when using the actual credit card.

These cheques are so terrible, that various financial information sites are warning to, “avoid credit card cheques like the plague”. Which? has said that they, “want unsolicited credit card cheques to be banned, especially as we have found that companies use them to encourage indebtedness, for example cheques have been sent out with marketing literature suggesting they can be used to pay for holidays or gifts.”

There is currently a Government discussion going on with credit card representatives at APACS as to whether these cheques should be banned, but it looks as though there will simply be an opt out clause added to stop receiving them.

Until this option is added and this form of potentially financially dangerous junk mail can be stopped, the best thing that you can do is shred them and make sure they are completely unusable, the moment they arrive.

Rant over.