International Women’s Day: 12 of the most awesome women in the City March 8, 2017 With International Women's Day upon us, what better time to celebrate some of the City's brightest and best, from business bosses to economists? Here's a run-down of 12 of the most awesome women in the City… 1. Jayne-Anne Gadhia – chief executive of Virgin Money Jane-Anne Gadhia has been chief executive of Virgin Money since 2007 [...]
Local alternative lending is enabling business growth outside the city December 8, 2016 Over the past decade, the risk appetite of the big banks has fallen, making them less inclined to provide finance to SMEs up and down the country. Consequently, small businesses have found it more challenging to secure funding through traditional methods. Figures recently published by the BBA, for example, showed that high street banks such [...]
As it pushes back a decision on its domicile, would HSBC be better off moving its headquarters out of London? November 2, 2015 Darius McDermott, managing director at Chelsea Financial Services, says Yes HSBC gets 70 per cent of its revenue from Asia and, given it expects to get most of its future growth from this region, it seems common sense that the bank should be based there. On top of this, the UK political environment remains hostile [...]
RBS among worst performing European banks as stress test results are published July 30, 2016 Royal Bank of Scotland was the stand-out British performer in the European Banking Authority’s (EBA) stress test results. But not in a good way. The assessment of how European banks might perform in adverse conditions found RBS’s capital levels down 7.5 per cent, making it the third biggest faller of 51 lenders tested. Under the [...]
Bank stress test results: Britain’s seven biggest lenders including Standard Chartered, HSBC, Lloyds and Barclays, under pressure from regulators November 29, 2015 Britain's biggest banks are bracing for announcements from the Bank of England Tuesday which may force them to cut dividends in order to satisfy regulators’ capital requirements. Seven leading lenders – HSBC, Barclays, Lloyds Banking Group, Standard Chartered, Royal Bank of Scotland, Santander and Nationwide – were subject to the Bank of England’s latest round [...]
Deal-making at investment banks is set to hit a 10-year high October 4, 2016 Investment banks are eyeing up a bumper year of deal-making as activity in the money markets is set to hit its highest level in a decade. The volumes of cash flowing through investment houses in the shape of debt and capital market (DCM) activity hit $5.2 trillion (£4.1 trillion) in the first nine months of [...]
Asda just had its worst quarterly performance on record August 18, 2016 The supermarket price war is hurting Asda, as it emerged today that sales for the company fell by 7.5 per cent in the three months to 30 June – its worst quarterly performance on record. Doug McMillon, chief executive of parent company Walmart, said: "In the UK, the competitive environment and food deflation continued to challenge the market, significantly [...]
The UK trade deficit widened in September, but dipped in the first full quarter since the Brexit vote, as sterling falls showed little effect November 9, 2016 The UK’s deficit on trade in goods and services widened in September, Office of National Statistics data has shown. The gap grew by £1.5bn from August to £5.2bn, with exports decreasing by £200m and imports rising by £1.2bn. The deficit on trade in goods was £12.7bn in September 2016, widening by £1.6bn from August 2016. This widening reflected [...]
HSBC customers not getting paid after IT failure August 28, 2015 HSBC customers face payday woes today, after an IT glitch at the bank has left thousands without their salaries just ahead of the bank holiday weekend. It's unclear exactly what problems it's experiencing, but following a barrage of complaints from customers noticing that their paycheques were missing, the bank confirmed on Twitter that it was [...]
Royal Bank of Scotland reveals plans for new structure to comply with UK ring-fencing requirements September 30, 2016 Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS) has set out its plans to restructure in order to comply with UK ring-fencing regulations. Legislation requiring the separation of essential banking services from investment banking services will take effect from 1 January 2019. RBS said today that in order to be compliant with its requirements, "we need to [...]