RBS slapped with higher-than-expected £56m fine for 2012 IT glitch November 20, 2014 The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has agreed a £56m settlement with financial regulators for an IT system failure in June 2012 – £6m more than the £50m penalty analysts had expected. The glitch, which began during a software upgrade to the bank's payment processing system, left over six million of its customers unable [...]
City Moves for 12 November 2014 | Who’s switching jobs November 11, 2014 Kames Capital Craig Bonthron has been appointed investment manager in the investment management firm’s global equity team. He joins from Scottish Widows Investment Partnership, where he was an investment director and joint manager of the Swip Global Sustainability Equity and Global Islamic Equity funds. Herbert Smith Freehills James Palmer has been appointed senior partner and [...]
Bank of England offers lender of last resort access to non-banks for first time in over a century November 5, 2014 The Bank of England (BoE) made an unprecedented move yesterday as it allowed certain non-bank organisations to access its account facilities – expanding its so called lender-of-last-resort access. For at least a century, only commercial banks and building societies had the privilege of keeping accounts with the BoE. Commercial banks such as Halifax and NatWest can [...]
Entrepreneur Luke Johnson reveals he has a secret stalker November 3, 2014 Risk Capital Partners chairman and entrepreneur Luke Johnson looks to be paying the price of fame – the private equity star has got himself an obsessive fan. “I appear to have a stalker. She attends many of my speaking engagements and then comes up to me at the end…and says ‘I want you,’” he writes [...]
Lloyds branch closures are just the start: The UK is dramatically over-banked October 28, 2014 IT MIGHT be an uncomfortable truth for many to hear, but the UK is dramatically over-banked for the digital age. There are a little less than 10,000 bank branches across the UK, far fewer than the approximately 38,000 in France, for example. But for the UK, this is still too many. Lloyds Bank seems to [...]
Mortgage price war as interest rate hike prospects fade October 20, 2014 Banks slashed mortgage rates again this weekend as the prospect of monetary tightening from the Bank of England receded even further into 2015. Lenders had started increasing rates earlier this year as they believed the booming British economy would lead policymakers to raise interest rates. But the Bank’s monetary policy committee has resisted lifting rates [...]
RBS: Mortgage borrowers are not ready for interest rate hikes October 16, 2014 Borrowers are not ready for higher interest rates and could struggle to pay the bills even with a small rise in repayments, RBS chief Ross McEwan warned yesterday. Most RBS and NatWest mortgage borrowers had never experienced an interest rate rise, he said, and nationally more than 1.5m borrowers bought their house after 2007 when [...]
NatWest offers classes for SMEs September 28, 2014 NATWEST is to spend £15m over the next five years offering classes and funds for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), the bank said today, in RBS Group’s latest initiative to show it supports small firms. The scheme consists of eight sites around the country where small companies will be offered classes and guidance over a [...]
Monitise tanks by £300m after Visa mulls exit September 18, 2014 FORMER stock-market darling Monitise saw £290m wiped off its market valuation yesterday after its fourth-largest shareholder, Visa International, said it was considering the sale of its stake in the mobile banking firm. The revelation that Visa was “considering its options” for the 5.5 per cent holdings sparked a downwards spiral in the firm’s stock that [...]
Monitise share price dips as mobile banking firm eyes move to FTSE September 15, 2014 Aim-listed Monitise could consider a move to the main London Stock Exchange market as soon as this financial year, the mobile banking and payments firm’s chief executive told City A.M. yesterday. “The fact that we’ve reiterated that we’re seriously considering [a move to a main listing] shows that we’re thinking imminently, hopefully within this financial [...]