Investing in Gold and Accessing Child Trust Funds

Loading player...
Money Box investigates fees being charged of teenagers who are struggling to access their child trust funds. We speak to an 18 year old who agreed to pay a claims management firm 25% of his fund plus VAT, not realising he could do it for free. Lord David Blunkett was in government when Child Trust Funds were created in 2002, he tells Money Box that the unclaimed public money sitting in CTFs should be going to young people not firms looking to cash in.
Gold has seen rising prices this week in response to global markets turmoil. The precious metal is traditionally seen as a safe investment during times of economic turbulence. We look at the pros and cons of investing in gold and the different ways to do it.
Bank branches continue to close and in some remaining branches hours or services are being reduced. We hear from a Money Box listener who struggled to make a face to face appointment at his local bank branch.

Presenter: Paul Lewis
Reporter: Sarah Rogers
Researchers: Eimear Devlin and Jo Krasner
Editor: Beatrice Pickup

(First broadcast at 12pm Saturday 19th April 2025)
17 May English United Kingdom Business

Other recent episodes

Fraud Crackdown and Is Cash King?

The fight against what is called push payment fraud - when victims are groomed and manipulated into transferring money to criminals - took a huge step forward in October when new regulations for banks and other finance companies were introduced to make the banks involved liable for the losses. It…
14 Jun 24 min

Money Box Live: The 'Sadmin' of Bereavement

Earlier this spring the Financial Conduct Authority warned that some banks and firms lack empathy when dealing with bereaved customers and called for them to do more. Money Box Live received a huge response from our listeners when we covered the story, with emails from listeners about how they coped…
10 Jun 28 min

Cancer Costs and Mortgage Deals

Around 1 in 2 people living in the UK will be diagnosed with cancer during their lifetime according to Cancer Research UK. That stark statistic is a reminder how the disease can impact families up and down the country, but it's not just the health of people diagnosed that can…
6 Jun 25 min

Money Box Live: Move or Improve?

If your home isn't working for you, should you pack up and move or get the builders in and improve? Moving is expensive, aside from the price of the house there's Stamp Duty and solicitors fees to think about. So, is it worth getting the builders in instead if you're…
3 Jun 29 min

Wealth Divide and Domestic Abuse

People over the age of 60 hold nearly £3 trillion of wealth in the value of their homes, almost all of it mortgage free. That is more than half of all housing wealth in the UK. Under 35s by contrast control only £600 billion and half of that is mortgaged…
31 May 25 min