Daniel Bouton, the chairman of French bank Societe Generale, has said that the firm can recover from the shock news that it has suffered losses of $7bn due to internal trading fraud. The declaration was made in correspondance to the 22.5 million customers of the bank. The fraud case is one of the largest in [...]
Yesterday the World Bank declared it would follow the advice of a panel led by Paul Volcker, formerly Federal Reserve chairman, to bolster its anti-corruption unit. Criticism has been aimed at the bank by member states and lawmakers for its failure to properly deal with the corruption of development projects that the bank has financed. [...]
At the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum at Davos, economists have said that the Federal Reserve’s surprisingly high cut of 75 basis points could fuel an asset bubble, and did not learn the lessons of history. Stephen Roach, the Asia chairman of Morgan Stanley, has argued that the decision was reckless and dangerous, [...]
The loan US millionaires Tom Hicks and George Gillett used to purchase Liverpool football club is going to be refinanced. Speculation mounts that RBS and Wachovia, an American bank, are going to soon announce a £350m refinancing of the loan. Rumours had been circulating for some time that the loan could be refinanced, though the [...]
According to Mercer, the financial consultancy, the value of pension schemes has risen in the FTSE 100, despite recent stock market volatility. On Tuesday of this week, the effect of market movements on the UK’s largest company pension schemes left them showing an aggregate deficit of £13 billion, as compared with a deficit of £25 [...]
BC Partners, the international private equity group have today said they are anticipating returns in excess of 20% on the group’s sub-prime linked investment portfolio, despite the ongoing unrest in the global credit marketplace, according to a top executive today. Stefan Zuschke of the group’s German operation said that the group was still looking forward [...]
The biggest building society in Britain, Nationwide, has today announced it is to raise interest rates across its tracker mortgages by up to 0.15% in spite of the freeze by the Bank of England, in a move that has been justified as absorbing increased operating costs in the current financial climate. The move today sees [...]
A NIS 7 billion suit against the three largest banks in Israel has been given the go ahead by the Tel Aviv courts. The banks, Discount, Leumi and Hapoalim, are accused of breaking antitrust law by fixing charges for interest and services. Judge Nissim Yeshaya has said that the financial stability of the three banks [...]
The Bank of China shares in Hong Kong have recovered after the Federal Reserve slashed interest rates. The bank is the second largest in China, and since the start of the week its shares had lost a tenth of their value as financial turbulence swept through worldwide stock exchanges. To make matters worse, it was [...]
Economists are forecasting that American interest rates could fall as low as 2.5% by early spring. In the wake of plunging shares across the globe, the Federal Reserve recently slashed rates by 75 basis points to 3.5%, in an effort to reinvigorate the markets. The move appears to have had some impact in bolstering confidence, [...]
The UK Social Investment Forum (UKSIF), a membership network for sustainable and responsible financial services, is launching a new website aimed at increasing participation in the UK’s first National Ethical Investment Week (NEIW). The event, which will be held between 18th and 24th May this year, marks the first occasion on which the financial services [...]
The Federal Reserve cut US interest rates by three-quarters of a per cent yesterday, to 3.5%, leading to speculation that the Bank of England’s base rate will come down by half-of-one per cent, in February. The action by the US central bank is aimed at staving off a recession that could have a serious impact [...]
The Bank of America has today announced that it has realised a 95% downturn in its final quarterly earnings for 2007 as a result of its ongoing exposure to the sub-prime sector, following in the footsteps of other leading investment banks which have again this week reported poor performance as a result of the collapse [...]
The Bank of Japan has voted unanimously to retain the 0.5% interest rate. The decision comes a day after the worst day for worldwide stock markets since 9/11, and is in line with expectations. The Nikkei lost almost 4% yesterday, and over 5.5% today. Other shares across Asia saw similar consecutive losses. Toshihiko Fukui, the [...]
Gideon Gono, governor of Zimbabwe’s central bank, has alleged that local banks have been responsible for unnecessary cash shortages. Gono has said that the local banks have not collected money from the country’s main bank and distributed it to clients, thus creating an entirely avoidable shortage of cash. According to Gono the Reserve Bank has [...]
Yesterday saw the FTSE lose 5.5% of its value as it recorded a fall of over 300 points, the largest drop in a single day since the terrorist attacks of 9/11. In Paris and Frankfurt the stock exchanges lost approximately 7%. In the US the Dow Jones was closed for the day due to the [...]
The High Court case brought by the Office of Fair Trading (OFT), over unreasonable bank charges, has heard from defence counsel that unauthorised borrowing is a central feature of any current account. Laurence Rabinowitz QC, who is acting for Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), described overdraft facilities as “core” features of accounts, which could mean [...]
Pension providers are being urged to improve the services they offer to their annuities clients. According to the Association of British Insurers’ (ABI) Pension Maturities Statement of Good Practice, pension funds should be sent to annuity providers within 14 days of a person’s retirement. However, latest research from the Prudential Retirement Income Panel indicates that [...]
Investment bank Merrill Lynch has today vowed to overhaul its operations in relation to staff bonus payments following a year of record losses amidst record pay-outs to executives and top-tier management, with new CEO John Thain vowing to buck the emerging trend of bumper pay packets. Bonus payments to investment bank chiefs have hit record [...]
