Other personal finance stories in brief.

Irish savers 'too conservative'

Irish people are too conservative about where they place their savings, according to the Professional Insurance Brokers' Association (Piba). "Irish consumers currently have five times the value of a typical SSIA - approximately €70 billion in total - in low-yielding deposit accounts," Piba chief executive Diarmuid Kelly said. By switching €20,000 to equity-based investments, they could expect to see their money grow to €35,800 after 10 years as opposed to €27,000 for a typical deposit account in the same period, Mr Kelly said. The figures are based on an expected return of 6-7 per cent after tax and deductions.

Profits in credit card market

There are no signs of an increase in bad debts on Irish credit cards, according to the research company Lafferty Group. This week it published a study showing that an increase in defaults had hurt the profitability of the UK credit card market. It ranks Ireland as the second most profitable market for credit cards, although Mexico is likely to push it down to third when its figures are updated for 2006. The unique €40 stamp duty on cards is helping profits. "Because in Ireland people only tend to have one credit card, the spend per card is quite high," Lafferty researcher Olann Kerrison said.