BBC Trust nominee grilled by MPs September 9, 2014 RONA Fairhead, the preferred candidate for chairmanship of the BBC Trust, faced a grilling by MPs yesterday morning, including questions over her role during the HSBC Mexico money laundering scandal and her Pearson pay off. Fairhead was the chair of HSBC’s risk committee at the time of the case, which resulted in the bank being [...]
Three big banks speak up to aid troubled SMEs October 27, 2014 TROUBLED small businesses will be treated transparently and openly when banks look at restructuring their operations, the big banks pledged this weekend, a year after a damaging row about failing firms. Last year, RBS was accused of taking assets off firms to turn a profit, rather than honestly trying to help them in its Global [...]
Bunker eagled helps Watson to land title after McDowell fades November 9, 2014 MASTERS winner Bubba Watson toasted a miraculous eagle from a bunker after landing his third title of the season in dramatic fashion at the WGC-HSBC Champions in Shanghai yesterday. Watson beat South Africa’s Tim Clark at the first hole of a play-off, but only after holing a heroic three from the sand at the par-five [...]
Flint: Heavy regulations are crushing growth October 21, 2014 EXCESSIVE regulations risk squeezing growth out of the global economy, HSBC’s chairman Douglas Flint told a House of Lords committee yesterday. He fears regulators are so focused on stability that they are stopping banks taking the risks they need to lend to firms, creating jobs and growth. “It seems to me that all too often [...]
MPs call for banking sector ‘shake-up’ following ‘appalling’ forex scandal November 17, 2014 MPs have said the forex scandal shows the banking sector is still in desperate need of a shake-up. Andrew Tyrie MP and three other former members of the parliamentary commission on banking standards (PCBS) issued a joint statement saying the forex scandal, coming so soon after Libor, shows there's still much work to be done [...]
Barclays share price leaps and bank shares rise as Bank of England recommends raising leverage ratio for UK banks October 31, 2014 The Bank of England (BoE) has revealed proposals to increase the leverage ratio of UK banks to ensure they have a larger safety net to fall back on in the event of another financial crisis. The tough new measures will force banks to keep capital of up to 4.95p for every £1 they lend by [...]
City Moves for 26 November 2014 | Who’s switching jobs November 25, 2014 Standard Chartered Euan Campbell has been appointed to the newly-created role of global head of retail segments for retail clients at the bank. He joins from Santander Group, where he was executive vice president responsible for the strategic direction of its US cards business. Campbell has also held senior roles at HSBC. Cordea Savills The [...]
UK banks best placed for new capital buffers November 10, 2014 Investors will bear more losses more quickly when a big bank gets into trouble, under new rules laid out by global regulators the Financial Stability Board (FSB) yesterday. All global systemically important banks (GSIBs) will be affected as they will issue more capital to build up the buffers of total loss absorbing capacity (TLAC). Analysts [...]
HSBC: There’s no need to fear a strong pound January 27, 2014 EXPORTERS should benefit from a higher sterling because British firms buy as much from abroad as they sell, HSBC said in a report today. Traditionally a weak pound is thought to benefit exporters because it reduces the price of their goods to overseas buyers and so makes them more competitive. But UK manufacturers are now [...]
Barclays share price rises as it sets aside £500m to pay regulators over foreign exchange probe October 30, 2014 Are Barclays' regulatory woes about to reach a conclusion? Investors seemed confident this morning – the bank's share price opened 1.6 per cent higher as it revealed it has put aside £500m in the face of ongoing investigations into Foreign Exchange practices. Barclays is not the only bank to have made such provisions: HSBC and [...]