Santander profits dive 18 per cent as UK mortgage margins squeezed July 23, 2019 Santander posted an 18 per cent plunge in second quarter profits due to one-off acquisition costs and rising pressure on mortgage margins in the UK. Read more: Santander ‘offered Andrea Orcel 52m euros’ in botched CEO plan The figures Profit before tax fell 18 per cent year on year to €1.39bn (£1.25bn) between April and [...]
We need Alan Turing’s innovative mindset to make it through coronavirus March 27, 2020 Alan Turing designed the curiously named Bombe machine during the early stages of World War II. A forerunner to the computer, the Bombe was able to rapidly intercept messages, quickly decode them, and thereby allow allied forces to react within hours rather than weeks. Stories from the world of codebreaking today bring to vivid life [...]
FTSE 100 slumps despite massive Fed intervention March 23, 2020 FTSE 100 and global stocks tumbled today despite a massive intervention by the US Federal Reserve to try and stabilise coronavirus-ravaged markets. Britain’s blue-chip stock index closed nearly 3.8 per down at 4,993 points. The pan-European Stoxx 600 closed down 4.3 per cent, Germany’s Dax closed down 2.1 per cent and France’s CAC 40 ended [...]
PPI, profit drop, and a mixed 2020: Five takeaways from Lloyds’ results February 20, 2020 Lloyds reported a 26 per cent drop in annual profit on Thursday, with Britain’s largest domestic lender hit by a rise in bad debts and billions of pounds of customer compensation payout. Chief executive Antonio Horta-Osorio said the results demonstrated a “solid financial performance in a challenging external market”, but analysts have described them as [...]
UK house prices leap 4.1 per cent in bumper January – Halifax February 7, 2020 UK house prices jumped 4.1 per cent in January on an annual basis to come close to a two-year high, fresh figures from Halifax showed today. Homes rose 0.4 per cent in value compared to December, and climbed 2.3 per cent on a quarterly basis, Halifax’s house price index revealed. Russell Galley, managing director of [...]
The big fixer-upper: How to solve the problems in the mortgage market May 15, 2019 We've sent people into space, built driverless cars, and engineered robots that can think like us. And yet, fixing the mortgage approval process still seems out of humanity’s reach. The market is riddled with inefficiencies. Consumers are forced to fill out documents detailing every corner of their lives, while clunky underwriting processes mean that it [...]
Til divorce do us part: advice for couples considering separation January 16, 2020 Christmas is meant to be a relaxing time, but for many people it’s also a period of stress, tension, and tribulations — especially for married couples. The financial burden of the holidays plus the pressure to have a “perfect Christmas” and the familiar strain of dealing with in-laws can lead to squabbles and even full-blown [...]
UK house prices remain stagnant as no-deal Brexit looms August 30, 2019 UK house prices grew at less than one per cent for the ninth month in a row in August, Nationwide figures revealed today, prompting calls for Boris Johnson to slash stamp duty. The value of homes did not grow between July and August, Nationwide’s House Price Index found. Read more: London commuter belt house prices [...]
Why is the mortgage market strangely resistant to technological change? May 16, 2019 Technology is so pervasive that it is easy to forget just how fundamentally it has impacted our lives. In fact, it is hard to think of an area of life that hasn’t been made more accessible, faster or cheaper. Personal finance is no exception. Price comparison websites, mobile banking, and other innovations have all transformed the [...]
Housebuilder Berkeley Group defies Brexit jitters with ‘robust’ London performance September 6, 2019 Housebuilder Berkeley Group has enjoyed a period of “robust” market conditions in London and the south east of England, despite a weak sector backdrop driven by Brexit uncertainty. The London-listed firm said forward sales remained above £1.8bn and set a pre-tax profit target of £3.3bn for the next six years. Profit should be between £500m [...]