NISA or nastier?

Available for over a year

On Money Box with Paul Lewis: Nisa or nastier? A record £5 billion was put into cash ISAs when the new limit of £15,000 began on 1 July. The banks responded by slashing the rates paid. More than 20 ISA providers have cut the rates by an average of 0.34 percentage points. Only half a dozen have raised rates. Why are they cutting rates just when people can put more in? Anna Bowes from Savings Champion joins the programme. Try again but will it work? From Monday all banks will give us a second chance to avoid a penalty charge if a payment from our current account is bounced. As long as funds are put in the account by a least 2pm a second try will enable the payment to be made without a penalty. But many banks will not tell us that we have a pending bounced payment. So we will not know that we have to do anything. So we may still have to pay an average of £12 for the privilege of missing a payment. Mark Bowerman from The Payments Council explains how the initiative should work. Money lessons As teenagers saunter through the school gates next week, they'll have to get to grips with a new topic. From this term, all 11-16 year olds will have lessons in managing money as part of the National Curriculum. Money Box reporter Hannah Moore visits Ivanhoe College in Leicestershire to talk to pupils and teachers about what they are taught and how useful it is. Price of freedom The Chancellor has promised that from April 2015 anyone aged at least 55 will be able to take all their pension fund out and - after paying tax - spend it as they like. But there are worrying rumours that the pensions industry is busy planning to restrict this freedom - or at least make hefty charges if we want to enjoy it. Will the price of pension freedom be high? Alan Higham, head of pensions at Fidelity and Hugh Nolan, head actuary at JLT Employee Benefits, explain all.