Standard Chartered to up investment plans May 2, 2012 STANDARD Chartered will accelerate its investment plans on the back of what chief executive Peter Sands called a “strong start to 2012”. The bank gave a trading update yesterday, flagging “high single digit growth” in revenues. That was below its usual double digit growth, however, which the bank blamed mainly on “the continued strength of [...]
Funding costs drive Lloyds to slash loan book May 1, 2012 LLOYDS has taken an axe to its balance sheet in order to cut its reliance on increasingly expensive wholesale funding, the bank revealed yesterday. Markets welcomed the speedy shrinkage of the bank’s loan book as well as a signal from chief executive António Horta-Osório that he is keen to start paying a regular dividend and [...]
Fixing rates is a safer option March 4, 2012 ALONG with discussing our regularly inclement climate, house prices and mortgages are a national obsession of the British. However, according to the latest research from unbiased.co.uk, there is room to take the level of interest in the interest we pay on our mortgages up another notch. Unbiased.co.uk has recently found that only 49 per cent [...]
Why a lender promising to cut its lending makes sense – and why the ECB can’t do much about it May 1, 2012 IT IS not often these days that you hear a high street bank executive admit that his plan is to lend less to those well-loved aspirational families. And yet that is exactly what António Horta-Osório told analysts yesterday on a call to discuss Lloyds’ first quarter results. The aim, he said, is to slash the [...]
Mortgage time-bomb UK’s top threat March 7, 2012 SOME time-bombs can be defused. Not this one. At some point – in a year, in two, or perhaps even in five – the cost of borrowing for consumers will climb back to the sorts of levels we were used to 15 years ago. Complacent borrowers addicted to rock-bottom interest rates – and for whom [...]
Millions set to pay higher mortgage rate March 4, 2012 MORTGAGE repayments are set to rise across the board, with millions of borrowers expected to pay more each month. Over one million Halifax and NatWest customers have already been hit with rate rises, while some new customers to Santander will also see repayments go up. Those banks have blamed higher funding costs on wholesale and [...]
Trading hurdles at this summer’s Games July 16, 2012 LOOKING ahead to the start of the Olympic Games, there is no end of attempts to make tie-ins – official or not – with the festival of sport. But who are going to be the real winners and losers in business this summer? Much was made of the effects of the Jubilee celebrations on high [...]
Give your finances a spring clean: A guide to tidying up all the mess April 1, 2012 SAVINGS Tom Stevenson, investment director, Fidelity WITH a new tax year approaching, the sun shining and a string of bank holidays ahead, spring is certainly in the air. Now is the perfect time for you to take control of your savings. The first step of any spring clean should be ensuring that your money is [...]
Why a bit of risk-free investing can soothe the soul June 10, 2012 BEING a business journalist for CNBC has upsides and downsides. Every day we get to speak to the biggest players in the global markets. The access we get to the likes of George Soros, Mohamed El Erian and Warren Buffett is amazing – yet being surrounded by millionaire, nay billionaire, guests can make you feel [...]
House prices in biggest monthly fall for two years March 29, 2012 House prices suffered their sharpest monthly fall in more than two years in March, as first-time homebuyers braced for the removal of stamp duty exemption, mortgage lender Nationwide said. Nationwide reported one per cent seasonally adjusted fall in house prices on the month, the biggest since February 2010, and a sharp contrast to the 0.3 [...]