Standard Chartered has fired a young City banker after he was revealed as a leading member of far-right political group May 23, 2018 Standard Chartered has fired a junior banker after he was exposed as the head of the UK branch of a far-right political group. Twenty-three year old Tom Dupre leads the UK branch of Generation Identity – a group which aims to “preserve our peoples’ ethno-cultural identity” and laments the “great replacement” of European people. The [...]
Labour shadow chancellor John McDonnell attacks audit firms for ‘lining their pockets’ and blames Carillion’s demise on regulator failings May 19, 2018 Labour has pledged to smash Britain’s accountancy firm “cartel” and today demanded a “complete overhaul” of the way company finances are policed. Shadow chancellor John McDonnell attacked larger audit firms, which “operate with impunity whilst lining their pockets”. Speaking at a Labour conference in London this afternoon, McDonnell launched a review of both the accountancy [...]
UK bank HSBC holds on to the title of Europe’s largest – but Barclays and RBS slip down the ranks May 16, 2018 HSBC has held on to the title of Europe’s largest bank once again, according to new data, as the top four remained unchanged. Ranked by total assets, HSBC tops the chart with €2.1 trillion (£1.8 trillion), research from S&P Global Market Intelligence showed. Unchanged from last year, the UK institution was followed by France’s BNP [...]
Apprenticeship starts drop by nearly a quarter as levy criticised as “unfit for purpose” April 19, 2018 One year on since its introduction, the apprenticeship levy is facing intense criticism after the latest government figures show there has been a 24 per cent drop in new apprenticeship starts. In the six months to January 2018, 206,100 people started training schemes, compared with 269,600 in the same period the previous year, data from [...]
Deutsche Bank: John Cryan finds it tough at the top of Germany’s totemic lender | City A.M. March 28, 2018 How do you recruit for the banking world’s hardest job? Deutsche Bank chair Paul Achleitner is probably wishing he had gone about it somewhat differently, after news of informal approaches, not denied by the bank, leaked. The role he wants to fill, chief executive, has proven problematic for the best part of five years, with [...]
Standard Chartered fined by Singaporean regulator for money laundering and terrorism financing breaches March 19, 2018 Standard Chartered has been fined by regulators in Singapore for breaking money laundering and terrorism financing rules. The bank has been fined a total of 6.4m Singaporean dollars (£3.5m) by regulator the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS). The breaches occurred when accounts were transferred from Standard Chartered’s Guernsey arm to its Singaporean business in late [...]
City of London Lord Mayor Charles Bowman “confident” government can agree Brexit transition in 13 days March 19, 2018 London’s Lord Mayor is “quietly confident” the government will secure a transitional Brexit deal in the next fortnight to be ready ahead of the one-year marker for the UK leaving the EU. Charles Bowman, who serves as the figurehead for the City of London Corporation’s lobbying efforts, said the government has indicated it will try [...]
EU markets regulator ESMA finally releases long-delayed list of stocks affected by Mifid II dark pool volume cap March 7, 2018 The European markets regulator has finally released a long-delayed list of stocks which will be affected by the Mifid II cap on “dark pool” trading, covering the shares of some of the biggest household names across Europe. If more than four per cent of stocks are traded “in the dark” on any particular venue on [...]
Banks leave £13bn in cheap money from Term Funding Scheme on the table March 1, 2018 The final tally of cheap Bank of England (BoE) loans taken on by Britain’s banks is now in, with lenders leaving almost £13bn on the table. Banks borrowed £127bn under the Term Funding Scheme (TFS), which closed yesterday, according to Bank of England data. The scheme delivered a stream of almost interest-free loans to banks [...]
Is inheritance tax too complicated? February 22, 2018 The chancellor has requested a review of the “particularly complex” UK inheritance tax regime. What is it that makes inheritance tax so complicated? Chancellor Philip Hammond recently wrote to the independent Office of Tax Simplification (OTS) in order to call for a review of inheritance tax to make sure the system is "fit for purpose". [...]