Angela Russell, Deputy Chief Executive and Finance Director, Newcastle building society, said: “The Government focus in recent budgets to improve the ISA landscape for savers is encouraging. It was confirmed in the Budget that First Time Buyers will be able to take advantage of the Help to Buy ISA from 1st December this year. The Help to Buy ISA is a positive step forward to support people saving for a deposit for their home. The Society has had a similar product to the Help to Buy ISA; Our Big Home Saver is a market leading product and encourages regular saving, while rewarding savers with a cash back sum if they have successfully saved with the Society and gained a mortgage with us. This has proved very popular.
“Newcastle Building Society is hugely supportive of moves to help aspiring homeowners get onto the housing ladder. We, for instance, have been a supporter of the right to buy scheme for many years and the budget announcement shows that there’ll be extra support in this market. We have continued to support first time buyers with a wide range of consistent good value products. We also host first time buyer seminars to help educate potential borrowers about the opportunities out there to own your first home as well as the importance of saving.
“The Budget announcement also included details of a Green Paper to be published covering further pension reforms including taking questions and views on a new ISA style pension. We are keen for savers to make the most of tax-free savings options and believe the move to support people investing in a pension is very important. Given the widespread pensions reforms previously announced the need for advice linked to setting up and accessing pensions has never been greater.”