We are maintaining the minimum payments of £9, but want our credit limit restored.When I phoned the bank to ask whether clearing the balance would help, I was told it needed regular payments to improve our credit rating. My husband earns £42,000 a year and our only debt is a £60,000 mortgage. RK, by e-mail.A It is very important to stick to the terms of loan repayments, because lenders can make a very harsh interpretation of missed payments, as in your case. RBS says that when a credit limit has been cut it can take a long time before it is fully restored. It expects to see consistent compliance with terms over a sustained period. But, as a gesture of goodwill given your particular circumstances, it has increased your credit rating.If you have any questions about personal finance topics or problems, please write to Questions of Cash, ‘The Independent’, 191 Marsh Wall, London E14 9RS, or e-mail cash independent.co.uk We regret that we can reply only to letters published here. Please send copies, not originals, as we cannot undertake to return material..

British Telecom this week responded to customer complaints and stiffer competition by announcing what it described as “simpler and improved versions” of its BT Together packages. Instead of the present confusing seven different sets of prices, from 1 June there will be just three, a set-up BT claims compares well with mobile text messages and the telephone landlines of cable TV operators. BT Together customers will be able to chat for up to an hour in the evenings and at weekends for 6p, about half the price of a text message and up to 20 times cheaper than rival voice telephony offers.Under the first option, the 6p hour plan, for £11.50 a month customers will pay a flat rate of 6p for up to an hour on all evening and weekend UK calls and 3p a minute daytime midweek. BT says this is a 25 per cent saving on its previous price for national calls and “is ideal for those of us who like a proper catch-up on the phone with friends and family at the evenings and weekends”.The second option, at £17.50 a month, has free calls for the first hour at evenings and weekend in the UK Daytime midweek calls are still 3p a minute. BT said this was aimed at families with teenagers who are always on the phone.For £28.50 a month, the third option makes all UK calls for the first hour at any time of the day But these apply only to voice conversations. Internet traffic is charged at prearranged separate rates.Angus Porter, managing director of BT Retail’s consumer division, said: “Customers switching from Telewest will save money with BT every time they pick up the phone, and ntl and One.Tel customers will save on all national calls over a minute, based on present rates.

Thirty-minute and one-hour national evening calls with One.Tel cost 78p and £1.53, compared with just 6p under BT Option 1. With the new packages, customers can clearly see the benefits to them and how they compare. People are often misled by our competitors claiming to be cheaper because savings are based on comparisons with our standard rate, rather than with BT Together. We believe our options will not only attract more people back to BT but will appeal to large numbers of new customers.”BT admits a survey of more than a million BT customers turned up many complaints about people not being able to understand their bills. “They told us they wanted simplicity, clarity and better value,” a spokeswoman said “That kicked off our thinking.”. Two reminders came this week that environmental concern is a megalith aimed at corporate profits. First, MPs urged the Chancellor to give a significant hike to green taxes in next week’s Budget.

Then the Association of Certified Chartered Accountants put out a publication, The Big Picture, the first of several aimed at helping the long-term mplications of environmental issues for balance sheets and profit-and-loss accounts sink in. Once represented by a few “ethical” funds, it is now addressed as socially responsible investing (SRI). At least two-thirds of the major pension funds have SRI issues in their investment strategies, and some put the size of the SRI iceberg at £400bn. On the legislative side there are already landfill and carbon emission taxes.A new Companies Bill is likely to increase a mandatory requirement for wider disclosure of environmental and social risks and impacts That will inevitably bring pressure for action A cross-industry committee is drawing up criteria. The suggestion is that the top 1,000 companies should be covered. New instrumental accounting standards could result.The sympathy investors feel with SRI investment is shown, says Noel Smyth, SRI specialist at the fund manager Morley, because they stick with the funds. These rarely outperform markets, though the star, the deeply green veteran Friends Provident Stewardship Income, lost only 16 per cent in the past year.