Chancellor Rachel Reeves delivered Labour’s first Budget in 14 years, announcing £40bn of tax rises, Central London Alliance comments
City Moves for 29 April 2019 – Who’s switching jobs at Hambro Perks, Cushman & Wakefield and Relendex? April 29, 2019 Today's City Moves includes Hambro Perks, Cushman & Wakefield and Relendex. Hambro Perks The London-based venture firm, Hambro Perks, has announced the appointment of Svenja Grundmann as investment associate. Svenja Grundmann has joined the company to work alongside portfolio manager Jemma Bruton and Richard Tufft, venture partner and co-head, in building out the Access Fund. [...]
RBS profits sink as bank warns future earnings face pressure from Brexit uncertainty April 26, 2019 RBS profits fell in the first three months of 2019, it revealed a day after its chief executive announced his intention to resign. Ross McEwan yesterday announced he would step down after five-and-a-half years at the helm, saying he had achieved his strategy to refocus the bank after its £45.5bn government bailout. However, today the bank warned [...]
Nigel Farage’s Brexit party names business leaders in European election candidate line-up April 23, 2019 Nigel Farage today promised to go after the Labour Party’s vote as he unveiled business and charity leaders among its European election candidates. Lance Forman, the owner of H Foreman and Son, an artisan salmon smokehouse in London's Hackney Wick, will run for the Brexit Party just weeks after it was formed. Read more: Theresa [...]
Natwest increases small business loan programme amid Brexit uncertainty April 23, 2019 Natwest will double its growth funding programme for small and medium-sized British businesses, citing the need to help them navigate Brexit disruption. Read more: Government provides £200m for small firms as Brexit threatens EU funding The UK bank’s growth funding loan pot, which was started in May 2018, will be immediately doubled to £6bn in [...]
TfL awards controversial £1bn ‘sale and leaseback’ Crossrail fleet deal to Natwest-backed group March 22, 2019 Transport for London (TfL) has awarded a controversial £1bn "sale and leaseback" deal for a fleet of Crossrail trains to a rail company backed by Natwest and Japan's second largest bank. 345 Rail Leasing, which was set up in January this year and comprises Equitix Investment Management, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation and Natwest, will own the [...]
Contactless card payments rise by a third with transaction limit set to increase March 15, 2019 Every two in five card payments are made with contactless technology according to new data. Contactless transactions rose 31 per cent year-on-year in 2018, data from banking trade body UK Finance revealed, demonstrating a growing confidence in paying without use of a Pin. A wider adoption of the technology on public transport and in more [...]
Barclays, Lloyds and Natwest launch business hubs as branch closures hit small firms March 11, 2019 Three of the UK’s largest banks have unveiled plans for joint business hubs amid fears small firms are being hit by branch closures. Natwest, Lloyds Bank and Barclays have announced the pilot, which will see six business banking hubs launched across the country. Read more: Digital bank Monzo in discussion with Post Office over cash [...]
Natwest launches fingerprint payment trial for contactless card purchases March 11, 2019 Natwest will trial fingerprint payment technology to allow customers to make purchases worth more than £30 when using their contactless card. The trial, which will begin in the next few weeks, will allow shoppers to verify payments above the £30 contactless limit using their fingerprint rather than having to enter their Pin number. Read more: [...]
Ranked: The high street banks with the most IT outages March 4, 2019 UK banks are suffering IT outages or security failures at a rate of more than one a day, new figures from the financial watchdog have revealed. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) now requires banks to publish information on IT failures. Read more: Barclays down: Banking app outage hits customers Analysis conducted by Which found there [...]
Metro Bank tops customer service survey as challenger bank grows in popularity February 15, 2019 Metro Bank has topped an industry-wide customer service survey despite battling an accounting error, which has hit shares in recent weeks. The challenger bank knocked First Direct off the top spot in a Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) survey based on whether customers at the UK’s 16 largest current account providers would recommend their bank to friends [...]