In its latest MoneyMood survey, Legal & General found that nine out of 10 respondent households expect inflation to be higher, or to remain at today’s level (3.5%), over the next 12 months. Only one in 10 households were hopeful that inflation would ease and more than half thought that inflation would be higher than [...]
Savers putting their money into notice accounts are currently enjoying the best rates for three years, research from Moneyfacts.co.uk suggests. According to the finance analyst, the average rate paid on notice accounts currently stands at 1.57%, having hit a low of 1% two years’ ago. Rates of up to 3.3% are available to those prepared [...]
The Financial Services Authority (FSA) is in the process of contacting 76,732 people to let them know they are targets for fraudsters trying to con them out of their money. The names appear on a number of lists recovered from companies that the FSA believes were fraudulently selling investments in land or worthless, sometimes non-existent, [...]
In its latest MoneyMood survey, Legal & General found that nine out of 10 respondent households expect inflation to be higher, or to remain at today’s level (3.5%), over the next 12 months. Only one in 10 households were hopeful that inflation would ease and more than half thought that inflation would be higher than [...]
The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Bank of England has decided to leave the UK’s interest rate unchanged at the record low of 0.5%. The MPC has also chosen not to enlarge the quantitative easing (QE) asset purchase scheme and to leave it at its present size of £325bn. The interest rate, the lowest [...]
The Reserve Bank of Australia has announced that it is cutting the nation’s interest rate by 50 basis points to 3.75%. The decision is based on information which suggests that economic conditions have been weaker than forecast, and that inflation has moderated. In a statement Governor Glenn Stevens said that global economic growth had slowed [...]
Barclays has joined forces with Russell Investments to create a new set of investable liability-driven investment (LDI) fixed income benchmarks for US corporate pension funds. According to the companies, pension fund investing in the US has evolved in recent years toward a liability-driven investing approach and while Barclays and Russell agree that existing benchmarks for [...]
Falling gilt yields have pushed final salary pension funds £90 billion deeper into the red since the second wave of quantitative easing (QE) began, in October 2011. According to the National Association of Pension Funds (NAPF), the Bank of England’s QE programme of the past six months has hit pension funds harder than expected and [...]
Nationwide is claiming that people could earn an extra 20% a month during their retirement by using a new annuity service launched by the building society earlier this week. With industry figures suggesting two out of three retirees are failing to shop around for the best annuity rate, the service provides access to a panel [...]
Barclays has hired four investment representatives who will be based at the bank’s New York wealth and investment management division. Mark Leyton is joining as a managing director from Deutsche Bank’s private wealth management division, where he has been creating customised solutions for ultra-high net worth individuals, corporate executives and professional investors. Zach Shillingford, a [...]
Northern Trust has announced the appointment of Sheldon Woldt to the position of Middle East head. Woldt, who is tasked with fostering growth in the region, will collaborate with the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) regional management as he seeks to expand the firm’s presence in the Middle East. Woldt will move from Chicago [...]
Following recent revelations over a $2 billion trading loss, JPMorgan Chase has announced that Ina Drew, its chief investment officer, is retiring from the firm after over 30 years of service. Matt Zames, currently co-head of global fixed income at the group’s investment bank and head of capital markets within its mortgage bank, has been [...]
Barclays’ corporate & employer solutions (C&ES) division has established a corporate wealth advisory team. The new unit will help entrepreneurs and SMEs manage the risks relating to their most valuable employees by, for example, ensuring that appropriate measures are taken to protect against the loss of a pivotal staff member. Grant Hughes, who has recently [...]
In its Spring 2012 forecast for the UK economy, Ernst & Young’s ITEM Club says that central bankers have again saved the day with their unconventional monetary policies. In particular, the European Central Bank’s long-term refinancing operations have bought more time for the euro, whilst in the US and the UK, further rounds of quantitative [...]
KBC has announced that it has completed the sale of its subsidiary Fidea to affiliates of J.C. Flowers & Co. The announcement follows the necessary regulatory approvals permitting the transaction to go ahead and marks a significant investment by J.C. Flowers & Co. in Belgium. Fidea is a well-established and well-known insurance firm, selling its [...]
Barclays has hired four investment representatives who will be based at the bank’s New York wealth and investment management division. Mark Leyton is joining as a managing director from Deutsche Bank’s private wealth management division, where he has been creating customised solutions for ultra-high net worth individuals, corporate executives and professional investors. Zach Shillingford, a [...]
Following recent revelations over a $2 billion trading loss, JPMorgan Chase has announced that Ina Drew, its chief investment officer, is retiring from the firm after over 30 years of service. Matt Zames, currently co-head of global fixed income at the group’s investment bank and head of capital markets within its mortgage bank, has been [...]
The City jobs market showed signs of improvement in April as investment banks stepped up recruitment, having been buoyed by better results. According to financial services recruitment firm, Astbury Marsden, around 3,455 City job vacancies were created last month, representing a 9% rise on March. One hot area of recruitment was within Fixed Income units, [...]
The BayernLB Group has reported that in the first quarter of 2012 the firm made a pre-tax profit of €54m. This is around a third the €149m it made during the corresponding period last year, but the first quarter also saw an increase in difficulties relating to the eurozone sovereign debt crisis. The Corporates and [...]
The Financial Services Authority (FSA) has fined Habib Bank AG Zurich £525,000 and its former money laundering reporting officer, Syed Itrat Hussain, £17,500 over failures in anti-money laundering systems and controls. Habib is a privately-owned Swiss bank with twelve branches in the UK and approximately 15,500 customers. At the time of the FSA’s investigations, around [...]
Barclaycard Wireless Festival 2012, which will take place between 6th and 8th July in London’s Hyde Park, is to be the first music event in the UK to be fully contactless enabled. Vendors at the festival will accept all kinds of contactless payments including Barclaycard PayBand, a new wristband specially designed for festival-goers. Available shortly, [...]
Lloyds Banking Group has appointed Andrew Bester, currently chief operating officer consumer banking at Standard Chartered Bank, as chief executive, wholesale. Mr Bester will join Lloyds in the third quarter of 2012 and report directly to group chief executive, António Horta-Osório. Having begun his career at Standard Chartered, Mr Bester re-joined the emerging markets bank [...]
Credit Suisse has announced that Antonio Quintella, presently chief executive officer of Credit Suisse Americas, has been appointed chairman of Credit Suisse Hedging-Griffo. The firm acquired a majority stake in Hedging-Griffo five years ago and has since become Brazil’s leading asset and wealth manager. Quintella, who was formerly the chief executive officer of Credit Suisse [...]
