Banks want to lend you a bigger mortgage - but is that a good idea? This is Money podcast
Major banks are tweaking their rules to allow borrowers to get bigger mortgages, while a new upstart lender is offering seven times salary home loans.
Is this a welcome easing of the too tight rules to suit people's needs or the start of a recipe for financial disaster?
On this week's podcast, Georgie Frost, Lee Boyce and Simon Lambert dive into the world of mortgages and look at whether lenders are coming up with a solution or creating more problems.
Is this a repeat of the heady days before the financial crisis, have stress tests helped borrowers avoid the stress of rising rates, and would you even want a seven times income mortgage?
Plus, is the Bank of England about to aggressively cut interest rates in the wake of Donald Trump's tariff chaos.
Also on this episode, why our retirement expert Sir Steve Webb is loving his new solar panels and how to work out what kind of investor you are and how much risk you should take.
And finally, a definitive list of the 50 best British cars of all time has been released, do you agree with it?
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OnlyFans is giving HMRC what it wants
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An entire ecosystem has grown around OnlyFans since it was founded nine years ago by two British brothers, Tim and Thomas Stokely. One 'e-pimp' explained that successful models outsource much of their work to offshore call centres to give the illusion of intimacy with customers. Low-paid workers in Venezuela or the Philippines are hired to impersonate creators over text chats, maintaining dozens, even hundreds, of relationships with lonely men. OnlyFans' profits are enormous. In 2023, it generated nearly £5 billion in sales – up more than 2,000 per cent in four years. The company paid £127 million in tax last year, £110 million of that in corporation tax. Because Fenix is based in London, the bulk of that cash is flowing straight into the Treasury. For comparison: Britain's fishing industry – supposedly a red-line issue in Brexit – brings in just £876 million and pays next to nothing in corporation tax, while also receiving £180 million a year in tax concessions. We don't think of OnlyFans as a media company (if we think of it at all) and so we ignore what it is in business terms: a staggering success. With more than four million 'content creators' and 305 million subscribers, it would easily rank in the top three British publishing companies. It is perhaps the most successful creator-based subscription service ever. Traditional platforms can't compete – OnlyFans' revenues are twice that of North America's Aylo, which operates the world's biggest porn websites. Britain's sex industry brings in far more to the economy than politicians are comfortable admitting Britain's sex industry brings in far more to the economy than politicians are comfortable admitting. The Office for National Statistics estimates Britons spend in excess of £6 billion annually on it. It is one of the few British industries which remains a net (digital) exporter. 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