Bill Clinton’s affordable housing ideology caused sub-prime crisis November 11, 2012 MANHATTAN’S US Attorney is wrongly suing Bank of America for mortgage fraud against Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the American mortgage giants. The complaint asserts that Bank of America, and its predecessor Countrywide, implemented a loan origination process called “Hustle” – designed to process loans at high speed and without quality check points. Strangely, Fannie [...]
Rates hiked at Santander October 2, 2012 BORROWERS who have a mortgage at Santander face higher repayments from today, when the lending giant raises its standard variable rate (SVR). Santander will raise its SVR 0.5 percentage points, to 4.74 per cent, blaming increasing funding costs, which it says drove competitors’ SVRs up five months ago. It also laid the blame on liquidity, [...]
Standard Chartered gets close to settling Iran sanction claims October 30, 2012 STANDARD Chartered saw profits rise in the third quarter, according to its update published yesterday, although its progress was slowed by the cost of settling claims made by US regulators that it broke sanctions against Iran. The emerging market specialist recorded “high single-digit” profit growth, knocking its hopes of upping profits by 10 per cent [...]
High childcare costs needn’t give you a case of baby blues November 25, 2012 RISING childcare costs are deterring British mothers from returning to work. According to a 2011 Eurostat survey, 48.8 per cent of women with three or more children are in employment in the UK, compared with 71.3 per cent in the Netherlands and 68.2 in Finland. But family formation patterns have changed over the past few [...]
Goldman to swing to profit October 14, 2012 US BANKS are expected to report strong revenue figures this week, in part thanks to the boost to the mortgage market from the Federal Reserve’s latest round of money printing. Goldman Sachs will report its third quarter results tomorrow, and is expected to turn 2011’s third quarter loss of $393m (£245m) into a solid profit [...]
White collar boxing dens November 19, 2012 Boxing, in some form, or other has been around for at least 5,000 years. It has been practiced by everyone from Roman slaves to Victorian gentlemen; from army majors to backstreet brawlers. Today it is still most strongly associated with working class fighters slugging it out in East End gyms. But there is a growing [...]
White collar boxing dens November 19, 2012 Boxing, in some form, or other has been around for at least 5,000 years. It has been practiced by everyone from Roman slaves to Victorian gentlemen; from army majors to backstreet brawlers. Today it is still most strongly associated with working class fighters slugging it out in East End gyms. But there is a growing [...]
Babies born today can expect a long expensive future November 15, 2012 BRITAIN faces many challenges, but none more daunting than our ageing society and the financial challenges it will create for future generations. There were 807,766 live births in the UK in the past year, and the Office of National Statistics (ONS) predicts that one in three will live to be 100 years old. Today there [...]
Biggest banks earmark £10bn to cover mis-selling claims November 1, 2012 THE BIGGEST banks have now set aside more than £10bn to cover PPI mis-selling compensation payouts, and analysts believe the total for the industry has smashed the £12bn mark. RBS today sets aside an additional £400m to cover the claims from aggrieved customers, taking its individual total to £1.725bn so far. And analysts believe HSBC [...]
Santander hit by rise in bad Spanish loans October 25, 2012 PROFITS plunged at Santander as ever more Spanish loans turned bad in the country’s ongoing recession, the bank’s third quarter results showed yesterday. The Spanish bank’s UK arm performed more strongly, though it too was slowed by shipping loan problems, increased provisions against corporate debt it bought in the credit crunch, and a cost from [...]