House prices climbed by 0.2 per cent last month – the first rise in nearly two years.

The deal

It's been a hectic week on the savings front, with much of the activity in the ISA sector. However, away from the jostling in the tax-free best buy tables, there was an eye-catching return to the savings arena from Investec Bank.

If you go into the red, it’s almost impossible to work out how much it will cost you. Consumer group Which? put that to the test and asked volunteers – including a maths PHD student – to calculate the charges of an unauthorised overdraft for four different banks.

House prices fell by 0.6 per cent in August, according to Nationwide Building Society, wiping out the 0.3 per cent gain identified by the mortgage lender in July. The average UK house now costs £165,914.

Even though the base rate has been stuck fast at 0.5 per cent for the past 27 months, the interest rate charged by banks and building societies for personal loans is at the highest level for over a decade.

With the British economy still in a fragile state and government spending cuts yet to bite, you probably wouldn't be the only one to expect that credit card providers would be adopting a cautious strategy to avoid getting their fingers burned again by bad debts and write-offs.

Money can buy you many things, but not the welcoming embrace of polite New York society it would seem. Lisa Falcone, wife of the hedge fund mogul Philip Falcone, is less than impressed with the treatment her husband receives in the City.

The building society landscape may have changed dramatically over the last 25 years due to mergers and takeovers, but even though the number of mutuals and the size of the overall branch network may have shrunk, it still has plenty to offer.

I was surprised to learn that there is a lack of choice and competition in the retail banking sector, according to the latest findings of the Treasury Committee.

Outlook Many in the financial-services sector will welcome the announcement yesterday from their regulator that this year's compensation fund levy will be a little lower than previously expected. But the explanation for the smaller bill is pretty miserable: the Financial Services Authority (FSA) has imposed so many swingeing fines on the industry it polices that its coffers are flowing over.

Capitalism is an undemocratic system. Unlike democracy, some have more "votes" than others, because they own more shares in an institution, or because they have more to spend on certain things in certain places. Still, we consumers have more power than we might realise. Without us there would be no companies. Or indeed banks, to bring me to my point. For if you are really, really upset about the bonuses the banks are paying to their traders and managers – £6bn in all – then my suggestion is to do something about beyond whinging. And that something is to move your account. Put at its simplest; if you don't like the £9m Barclays is paying to its boss Bob Diamond, say, then you can always boycott Barclays.