Barclays cheque scanning tech leaves other banks in the past July 2, 2015 Barclays customers are ahead of the curve when it comes to financial technology, as the bank’s secure cheque-scanning service was made available to all smartphone customers yesterday. Cheque imaging, which iPhone-owning Barclays clients have been able to use since last year, allows anyone using their banking app to pay a cheque into an account [...]
FCA hits RBS, HSBC, UBS, JPMorgan and Citi with record £1.1bn fine in forex rigging scandal November 12, 2014 Some of Britain's biggest banks have been slapped with a fine of £1.1bn by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) for "failing to control business practices" in their foreign exchange trading operations. After a year-long investigation into allegations of rate-rigging in their spot forex trading businesses, the UK's financial watchdog said the actions of the five [...]
Lloyds, GSK and Vodafone: The 10 shares pension drawdown investors are buying up August 5, 2015 Four months after pension savers were given freedoms allowing them to withdraw their savings and invest it into other areas, they have yet to spend their pension pots on those Ferraris everyone was worried about when the freedoms were first announced. Or that's according to financial adviser Hargreaves Lansdown, anyway, which has listed the top [...]
George Osborne puts all economic bets on China and plans to bring the London and Shanghai Stock Exchanges closer together September 22, 2015 Chancellor George Osborne will today brush off concerns over volatility in Chinese markets and reveal new plans to connect British and Chinese stock exchanges. Unfazed by August’s market shocks, and the authoritarian response from Beijing, Osborne will say at the Shanghai Stock Exchange today: “Whatever the headlines, regardless of the challenges, we shouldn’t be [...]
HSBC boss Alan Thomson quits and bankers mutiny over jail threat October 7, 2014 Top bankers are quitting the industry in protest at new rules which mean senior staff in failed banks could face jail unless they prove themselves innocent, with one HSBC boss leaving and another threatening to go yesterday. Their actions prompted a swathe of bankers and lawyers to warn that plans to reverse the burden of [...]
FCA: Lessons still to learn from rate-rigging scandals such as Libor and forex July 29, 2015 The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has warned banks are yet to fully apply the lessons learned from rate-rigging scandals such as Libor, forex and gold to other benchmarks. The FCA's "Thematic Review of Oversight and Controls", which looked into 12 firms between August 2014 and June 2015, assessed all benchmarks apart from Libor and forex, which [...]
Is a specialist MBA a sensible option? Funding may be easier to secure but you’ll end up tied down August 27, 2015 From aviation and shipping to CSR and music, MBA students are no longer limited to choosing unspecialised programmes which lack technical depth and insight. Long favoured in countries like India, where booming industries like healthcare had to recruit capable managers quickly, specialist MBAs have grown in popularity in recent years. So are they the [...]
Price war looms after BlackRock slashes fees to offer cheapest fund on the market July 28, 2015 The battle to invest savers’ cash ramped up yesterday after fund giant BlackRock slashed fees on their most popular funds by 50 per cent, giving it the cheapest fund on the open market. The company, which manages $4.7 trillion for investors, said it would cut fees on its UK equity FTSE tracker fund to 0.07 [...]
How you can help Maggie’s £1m fundraising campaign December 17, 2015 This year has been an especially important one for Maggie’s, the independent charity providing vital cancer support to the City of London. 2015 saw City A.M. launch a £1m fundraising campaign to help to deliver the charity’s unique programme of support from its new centre, Maggie’s Barts. Located in Smithfield, the new centre is being built on [...]
The Financial Conduct Authority is going to help savers by making it easier for them to switch accounts July 23, 2015 The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), Britain’s financial regulator, has announced plans to introduce new measures to help customers switch cash savings accounts, following a review of competition in the industry. Read more: This chart shows how many current account switchers Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds and NatWest have lost The regulator is proposing new rules which will make [...]