What’s replacing banker bashing? Hedge funds, asset managers and the rest of the financial services industry to be hit by Senior Managers and Certification Regime October 19, 2015 So, the government is scrapping its ‘guilty until proven innocent’ proposal for top bankers.Thank goodness. Rather than bankers being required to disprove their guilt, regulators will, actually, have to prove shortcomings. Regulators will need to show that senior managers have failed to take reasonable steps to prevent regulatory breaches in their areas of responsibility. That [...]
London house prices up by 10 per cent in October and first-time buyers bear the brunt – Rightmove October 19, 2015 There's just no end to it. London house prices are 9.8 per cent higher than they were in October 2014, data released today by online property market Rightmove reveals. Nationally, house prices rose 5.6 per cent year-on-year with first-time buyer properties leading the way at 9.6 per cent. The number of properties coming to the London [...]
HSBC opts for most boring name change imaginable September 3, 2015 Earth-shaking news from the banking sector this morning, after HSBC unveiled the name of its ring-fenced UK bank: HSBC UK. Try to contain your excitement. It had been speculated that the bank was toying with the name "Midland", the chain it acquired in the early 1990s. But in a statement this morning, HSBC said that [...]
Budget 2016: George Osborne’s speech in full March 16, 2016 George Osborne has just revealed the Budget for 2016. There was good news for businesses with corporation tax being sliced and business rates being reformed – but bad news for smokers and students who hate maths. Mr Deputy Speaker, Today I report on an economy set to grow faster than any other major advanced economy in [...]
Gfinity raises much-needed £1m from share sale after reporting loss of £3.6m November 2, 2015 Gfinity, the eSports – or gaming – company, held an accelerated share sale yesterday to raise £1m, after reporting a loss of £3.6m in the year to 30 June. The 19p share price represented a discount of approximately 22.4 per cent. The company issued a little over five million new ordinary shares, which accounts for around [...]
EU referendum: Business must reject the pessimism of the anti-Europeans and build the Europe we all want to see October 1, 2015 Eight years on from the financial crisis, the British and European economies are still not recovering as they should. Investment is down from the pre-crisis peak, and in the UK productivity has flatlined. Before the crash, lending to business flowed easily – since, it has dried up, particularly for small businesses. In Britain, businesses [...]
The challenging landscape for the UK’s serial entrepreneurs November 25, 2015 Gone is the job for life; the portable career is a thing of the past too; even owning your own business is no longer what it used to be. These days, it’s all about scaling fast, exiting and starting again – welcome to the world of serial entrepreneurship. The energy, innovation and determination which [...]
Challengers say Treasury talks are frustrating September 13, 2015 BOSSES at smaller banks have said that they were “disappointed” by recent meetings with Treasury officials. Bosses from 11 challenger banks – including Metro Bank, Aldermore and OneSavings Bank – sat down with Treasury officials on Friday to voice their concerns over a new bank tax set to go into effect next year. The tax [...]
Wall St rises despite fall in biotech shares – New York Report September 21, 2015 THE MAJOR US stock indexes ended higher yesterday, rebounding from losses late last week with help from Apple and financial shares, but a drop in biotech shares limited Nasdaq’s advance. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 125.54 points, or 0.77 per cent, to 16,510.12, the S&P 500 gained 9.03 points, or 0.46 per cent, to [...]
UK house prices: The number of new houses being built has actually fallen August 20, 2015 Given we're in the midst of a housing crisis, and the government has made all manner of promises to increase the number of homes being built, this is hardly encouraging: new figures have shown the number of new housing starts actually fell to 33,280 in the second quarter, six per cent lower than the same [...]