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Money Box: Fuel poverty, Choosing your PIN number, The Great Pension Debate and How to change a Bin Laden

24/11/2012

Fuel poverty, Choosing your PIN number, The Great Pension Debate and How to change a Bin Laden

BBC Radio 4 - Money Box, Fuel poverty, Choosing your PIN number, The Great Pension Debate and How to change a Bin Laden

Fuel Poverty, PIN woes, the pension time-bomb and how to change a 500 Euro note.

Why some in fuel poverty are set to pay more, banks denying compensation if you jot down your pin, tackling the pension time-bomb, and changing a 500 Euro note. With Paul Lewis.

We investigate why a listener on a cheaper social fuel tariff has been hit by an 18% price rise while his neighbour on a regular duel fuel tariff has had an 8% increase. Social tariffs were introduced to help people who live in fuel poverty - spending more than 10% of their income on fuel - which includes the elderly and people on benefits. But changes to the way that this group of people are assisted is changing and Money Box has learnt that some may now be worse off than before. We speak to Greg Barker, Junior Minister for Energy and a fuel poverty expert.

To what extent should a bank be able to dictate what pin you use to keep your card transactions secure? From January 1st, Santander will require customers to have a separate pin for its cards. Is this going to help cut down on fraud or is having too many pins a security risk in itself? Bob Howard investigates.

What would encourage you to save for your retirement? Would you be more willing to pay into a workplace pension if your boss gave some guarantee about the size of your pension pot and the rough size of your retirement package? That's what could happen with a new type of pension scheme being considered by the Pensions Minister, Steve Webb. He talks to Paul Lewis about his plans.

How do you change a Bin Laden? That's the question a listener posed to the Money Box team this week. John from East Sussex has two 500 Euro notes which he is having huge problems changing into sterling. The note is infamous for being the note of choice for organised crime which is why it was withdrawn from sales in the UK two years ago. We set Simon Calder, the Independent's Travel Editor the challenge of trying to change a Bin Laden.

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