RBS to pay $150m for US charges November 7, 2013 A unit of the Royal Bank of Scotland agreed to pay more than $150m (£93m) to settle civil charges alleging it misled investors in a financial crisis-era subprime mortgage product, US regulators said yesterday. The Securities and Exchange Commission said the money it will collect from RBS Securities would go toward compensating harmed investors. In [...]
Miliband outlines Labour Party’s economic plans: No big spending, more banks, 200,000 new homes a year July 19, 2014 Ed Miliband has told Labour there will be no return to the high spending of the previous Labour government and that the party will commit to "balancing the books" at the Party’s national policy forum in Milton Keynes today. The Labour leader outlined economic plans to party activists in a speech ahead of next year’s [...]
State-owned RBS reveals talks to offload equity derivatives business to third party November 18, 2013 ROYAL Bank of Scotland (RBS) has said it is in talks to sell its retail investor products and equity derivatives business, as it slims down its investment bank. Several industry sources have identified BNP Paribas, France’s biggest bank, as front-runner to buy the business. RBS, which is 81 per cent owned by the government, declined [...]
Inside Track: Ross’s brutal shake-up could prove painful for taxpayers January 29, 2014 ROSS’S Brutal Shake-up – come next month, that will be the most appropriate use of the initials of Britain’s most troubled lender. After Monday’s kitchen and bathroom sinking all rolled into one, it’s not difficult to see why. McEwan’s predecessor as chief executive of Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), Stephen Hester, was fond of describing [...]
Hourican brings in RBS man at Bank of Cyprus November 26, 2013 BANK of Cyprus has called on a second former senior banker from Royal Bank of Scotland to lead its restructuring following this year’s international bailout of Cyprus. Euan Hamilton, formerly deputy chief executive of RBS’s non-core division, has joined Bank of Cyprus as a consultant to specifically look at the delinquency, restructuring and recoveries of [...]
Green Investment Bank launches £1bn offshore wind project investment fund June 24, 2014 The UK Green Investment Bank (GIB) is on the lookout for "a suitable group of strategic, long-term, co-investors" to raise £1bn towards already-operational offshore wind farm projects in Britain. The state-owned bank announced it was launching a fund for investors to purchase stakes in ongoing projects in the country. According to the Financial Times, the [...]
Retailers return to stores even as footfall dips August 17, 2014 UK high streets are getting less and less empty as the economic recovery continues, even as fewer shoppers actually head for shops. The British Retail Consortium (BRC) and Springboard revealed this morning that the vacancy rate in UK town centres had dropped to just 10.1 per cent in July, half a percentage point down from [...]
Obituary Lord Kingsdown November 25, 2013 FORMER governor of the Bank of England Robin Leigh-Pemberton, Lord Kingsdown, died on Sunday night at the age of 86. Lord Kingsdown headed the Bank between 1983 and 1993, during a time of great change in the UK’s financial sector, and ushered in the UK’s regime of inflation targeting in 1992. Current governor Mark Carney [...]
London Report: Banking stocks stop FTSE index edging ahead November 12, 2013 FINANCIAL stocks kept a lid on the FTSE 100 yesterday after Goldman Sachs downgraded Royal Bank of Scotland. While the FTSE 100 closed little changed, banks and insurers combined to take 6.1 points off the index, handing back most of the gains they made in the previous session. Partly state-owned Royal Bank of Scotland fell [...]
Independent Scotland would be too small to rock the pound May 7, 2014 RESEARCH released today suggests that if an independent Scotland kept the pound, its size would give it minimal or no influence over monetary policy. A report published by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (Niesr) suggests that given the size imbalance between Scotland and the rest of the country, any such arrangement would [...]