Administrators hunt Bell Pottinger partners in bid to claw back ‘excess’ pay October 23, 2019 Former partners at the disgraced PR firm Bell Pottinger have been forced to repay hundreds of thousands of pounds in salaries they earned before the business collapsed. The London-based PR company went into administration in 2017 following a scandal over its work for the billionaire Gupta family in South Africa, where it was accused of [...]
Opinion: Lloyd’s Lend a Hand mortgage is a great deal for the bank, but is it any good for borrowers? February 15, 2019 A “new” mortgage called ‘Lend a Hand’ from Lloyds made the headlines last week – well, the real headline was the 100 per cent Loan-to-Value, which brought back memories of the financial crisis. Digging deeper into the mortgage itself, this product may well help first-time buyers, provided they are very careful, but, really, it is [...]
Consumer sentiment hits eight-month high despite Brexit uncertainty June 1, 2019 UK consumers reported an improvement in their personal finances and more positive outlook for the year ahead in May, according to the monthly survey by market researchers GfK. The economy has continued to grow slightly thanks to solid demand from households, despite businesses pausing any major investments as they await the latest in the Brexit [...]
Nationwide to lend first-time buyers five times their income on long-term mortgage April 20, 2021 First-time buyers with deposits as low as 10 per cent will be able to borrow five and a half times their income when taking out a longer-term mortgage, the UK’s biggest building society said this morning. Nationwide Building Society said that under its “helping hand” initiative, first-time buyers across the UK will have the option [...]
Investors clamp down on executives’ pension pay packets November 16, 2020 Investors are piling further pressure on companies to scale back executive pension packets to align with the rest of their workforce. In the past it has been common for executives’ pension contributions to be considerably higher than the rest of the workforce. Some progress has been made in bridging the gap but now investors want [...]
£54bn pandemic export hit: UK losing market share in US, Germany and China March 8, 2021 The UK’s goods exports slumped by £54bn in 2020 and Britain lost market share to its main competitors as Covid-19 hammered global trade, according to new research published this morning. The findings, from Aston University’s Lloyd’s Banking Group Centre for Business Prosperity, showed that Britain suffered a 14.7 per cent drop in goods exports, one of [...]
Lloyds Bank profits jump despite increased PPI bill February 21, 2018 Lloyds Bank annual profits leapt by almost a quarter despite a jump in PPI payouts. The figures Net interest income rose eight per cent to £12.3bn while operating costs were one per cent higher at £8.2bn. Lloyds’ provision for PPI rose from £1bn to £1.7bn. Profit before tax was £5.3bn, up 24 per cent. Dividends [...]
Banks can’t ignore the disruptors any longer September 17, 2019 Inside one of the City of London’s oldest buildings, bankers are discussing the future. Amid trade war turmoil, Brexit uncertainty and climate change concerns, there is one issue above all that dominates the agenda; digitalisation. It is a topic at the heart of the 23rd World Conference of Banking Institutes held at the City’s Guildhall, [...]
Lloyds invests in new digital banking platform November 7, 2018 Lloyds Banking Group said today it had invested in a fintech company whose tech it plans to roll out next year, in the bank’s latest bid to enhance its digital presence. Lloyds has invested £11m for a 10 per cent stake in Thought Machine, which is building a new cloud-based platform aimed at replacing current [...]
Natwest returns to profit as virus loan charges fall October 30, 2020 Natwest returned to profit during the third quarter, reporting forecast-beating earnings after setting aside a smaller-than-expected sum to deal with bad loans due to the coronavirus pandemic. Natwest posted an operating profit before tax of £355m for the three months to September on an income of £1.9bn. The figure beat the bank-compiled analyst estimates of [...]