Cifas, the UK’s fraud protection body, has reported a rise in the number of fraud cases reported by its 270 member organisations, in the first three months of the year. The figure increased 10% on the same period of 2007, to 52,286. During the quarter, cases of lying on application forms rose by 13%, to [...]
A third of the UK’s online users avail themselves of internet banking, according to Comscore. In January of this year, 11 million people utilised at least one banking service online, with Lloyds TSB gaining the most hits, attracting 2.8m users. Although RBS Group had more visitors (2.9m) they visited less often than the 6.8 visits [...]
Yesterday the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon announced that the UN and World Bank were to create a joint task force, chaired by himself, to combat the globally soaring price of food. The World Bank will provide a swift financial facility to channel funds to those countries most in need, with UN agency chiefs co-ordinating [...]
Wall Street Systems, the treasury and trading software company, has agreed the acquisition of Aleri Global Banking (AGB), for undisclosed terms. AGB is a subsidiary of Aleri Inc and has been providing software to banks and financial service firms for over 20 years. It currently processes over $10 trillion worth of transactions each month. The [...]
The Bank of China has seen its first quarter profits soar by 85%. The bank attributes the impressive increase to strong growth in fee and interest income coupled with a lower rate of tax. Over the course of the first quarter an increase in net interest income of 18.7% was recorded, hitting 40.8bn yuan. Fees [...]
Today German firm Deutsche Bank recorded a loss of €141m for the first quarter. It is the first time in five years that the bank has made a loss, and contrasts starkly with the €2bn profit made last year over the same period. The loss was due to writedowns amounting to a total of €2.7bn [...]
HBOS has unveiled its plans for a £4 billion rights issue. The group, which owns Bank of Scotland and Halifax, wrote down £2.8 billion in connection with the credit crisis in the first quarter of 2008 (compared with £736 million for the whole of 2007) as a result of a fall in the value of [...]
Apacs, the body that represents payment services providers, will be rolling out a faster method of transferring cash on the Internet or over the phone, on 27th May. The Faster Payments Service has been designed to allow one-off transfers within one day, rather than the current three days. However, the programme will get off to [...]
Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has confirmed that up to 7,000 jobs will go as it continues the integration of Dutch bank, ABN Amro, which was acquired last year. The bank is merging its investment and global banking divisions and a pre-redundancy consultation process is expected to begin this week. Job cuts are expected to [...]
Although frequent headlines describe the current financial turbulence, there is an upside. In the UK today there are a plethora of savings accounts providing good rates of interest, according to price comparison site moneysupermarket.com. However, the website’s savings chief Kevin Mountford warns that a number of these accounts offering impressive interest rates are contingent upon [...]
Yesterday the World Bank forecast that the economy of Palestine would perform poorly this year. The prediction comes despite billions of dollars of overseas aid, and the World Bank singles out Israel’s policy of limiting Palestinian trade as the central reason for the slow growth forecast. In Gaza, following the violent Hamas takeover, Israel has [...]
HBOS is reported to be planning a £4 billion rights issue, the details of which are likely to be announced to its 2.1 million shareholders this week. The group’s Halifax business is the UK’s largest mortgage lender and the bank is known to have concerns about the downturn in the housing market. This week, housing [...]
Bank of Scotland Corporate (BoSC) is reported to be negotiating the acquisition of around 40% of Kenmore, the Scottish property company. Kenmore is an Edinburgh-based developer and property fund manager that operates in the residential and commercial sectors. BoSC has recently increased its interest in property development; it owns stakes in Cala and Tulloch and earlier [...]
Mizuho Financial Group (MFG), Japan’s second largest bank, is closing its London securitisation business. Speaking in Tokyo, an MFG spokesman said that current market conditions made it impossible to continue with securitisation work in the London markets. MFG has so far written down £2.78 billion on mortgage-backed securities and is in the process of a [...]
Yesterday a further $6m grant was approved by the World Bank to be channelled into the Rwanda Competitiveness and Enterprise Development Project. The money is in addition to the initial investment of $40m, made seven years ago for the International Development Association. The CEDP’s aim is to lessen poverty through the promotion of the private [...]
Wall Street investment bank, Morgan Stanley, is facing a law suit over the management of the estate of soul artist, James Brown. The trustees of Mr Brown’s estate are accusing the bank of being complicit in allowing David Cannon, a previous manager of Mr Brown’s finances, to steal up to $12 million over the ten [...]
Consumer group, Which?, is urging High Street banks to reimburse customers who are reclaiming unauthorised overdraft fees. Yesterday’s ruling in the High Court did not settle the case brought by the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) over penalty charges, but it gave the OFT the right to assess whether the terms and conditions under which [...]
