Clydesdale hit by £20m fine for PPI faking April 14, 2015 CLYDESDALE Bank was fined £20.7m yesterday after the City watchdog found some of its staff had faked payment protection insurance (PPI) documentation when processing some compensation claims. The bank provided false information to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) when the officials requested information. In some cases, staff removed PPI from lists of products sold to customers, and [...]
Will Barclays’s restructuring programme actually improve prospects for the bank? March 2, 2016 Laith Khalaf, senior analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, says Yes. Jes Staley, the new boss of Barclays, clearly takes the view that big is not necessarily beautiful when it comes to banking operations. The sale of the group’s African business and accelerated wind-down of non-core assets push Barclays further along the path of becoming a simplified [...]
Information Commissioner’s Office hits Brighton-based Prodial with record-breaking fine of £350k for over 46m nuisance calls February 29, 2016 The UK's personal data watchdog has today slammed a Brighton-based firm with its largest ever fine issued for a "staggering" number of nuisance calls. The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) levied a £350,000 fine to Prodial, which was operating out of a residential property, after the company sent out over 46m calls consisting of automated messages, resulting in [...]
London’s biggest banks will struggle to reach sustained profitability due to bad debts and regulatory fines, IMF and KPMG warn April 14, 2016 A toxic mix of bad debts and regulatory fines will see some of London’s biggest banks struggle to reach sustained profitability, according to two major new reports from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and KPMG. The hard-hitting reports have prompted city analysts to predict looming job cuts in the Square Mile and Canary Wharf, while [...]
Barclays’ share price drops as profits and revenues fall on non-core losses – but CET1 ratio improves March 1, 2016 Barclays' share price fell this morning after revealing a slump in profits and revenues for the full year, and a major new strategy ahead of future ring-fencing. The figures Barclays' share price fell six per cent in early trading as investors digested the bank's full year results – Jes Staley's first as chief executive – which showed further declines [...]
PPI complaints to banks fall but card anger rises March 30, 2015 PAYMENT protection insurance (PPI) complaints are dropping away, and now account for fewer than half of all complaints to banks, the City watchdog said yesterday. Banks received 2.18m complaints from July to December 2014, a fall of 14 per cent on the same period of 2013. Of those, 1.06m were still PPI complaints – making [...]
UK banks have yet to address the elephant in the room: Their current business model is unsustainable April 14, 2016 It was another tough year for UK banks in 2015, and the challenges look set to continue. Our high-street banks are at a vital juncture: they’ve survived the crisis and are now preparing for one of the biggest overhauls of UK banking we have ever known with the introduction of ring fencing. KPMG analysis out today [...]
At the close: FTSE 100 index surges as banks’ share prices including Lloyds, RBS and Barclays rise February 25, 2016 The FTSE 100 index rocketed on Thursday as banking stocks surged, supported by the news that fourth quarter UK GDP was revised upwards to 0.5 per cent. The index closed 2.48 per cent higher at 6,012 points, led higher by Lloyds Banking Group and RSA Insurance Group. "European banks were the centre of market turmoil two [...]
Lloyds’ share price still has encouraging long term outlook despite chancellor George Osborne’s delay January 28, 2016 The chancellor has announced that the planned sale of the government’s shares in Lloyds to the public won’t proceed until turbulent markets have calmed down. This must be a big disappointment to the hundreds and thousands of investors who have registered their interest in the sale. But while the whole of the banking sector has been [...]
RBS in the red as mega-fines for PPI mis-selling and forex-rigging wipe out profit April 30, 2015 RBS could be on-track to pay a dividend if its turnaround continues, its chief executive said yesterday, as the bank’s underlying profitability improved in the first quarter of 2015. But it made another loss, this time of £446m, as it struggles through its restructuring, and set aside another £856m to cover legal costs and [...]