As former chiefs of Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) made public apologies before the Treasury Select Committee yesterday, the group announced that it could cut up to 2,300 jobs in the UK. The bank, which will shortly be majority state-owned, was brought to the brink of collapse last year under the leadership of its chief [...]
Latest figures from the Bank of England show that average interest rates on branch-based instant access and notice accounts have fallen to record lows. In January, branch-based notice accounts paid an average 0.29%, down from 0.9% in December and 3.9% in January 2008. Rates on branch-based instant access accounts fell to an average 0.51% last [...]
Swiss investment bank UBS has posted a fourth quarter loss of CHF 8.1bn, with adjusted pre-tax operating results of -CHF 2.8bn. For the full-year 2008 UBS recorded a loss of CHF 19.7bn, largely due to losses incurred from risks in investment banking. The fourth quarter of last year also saw the bank make substantial moves [...]
The former heads of Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and HBOS have today appeared before the Treasury Select Committee, which is investigating the causes of the UK banking crisis. One time RBS chief executive, Sir Fred Goodwin, assured MPs that he “could not be more sorry” for the events that brought about the near collapse [...]
Abbey’s Zero credit card has been named Best New Credit Card Product of the Year at the annual Cards Awards ceremony. Cardholder benefits include: 0% on balance transfers for the first six months; 0% on purchases for the first six months; 0% balance transfer fee (typically 3%); 0% fee on cash withdrawals (typically 3%); 0% [...]
Britannia Building Society, which is currently in merger negotiations with Co-operative Financial Services, has appointed tracing agency, Tracesmart, to locate dormant account holders. According to Britannia’s managing director, Tim Franklin, the building society has had its own programme to reunite customers with forgotten savings and while this has been successful, some additional expertise is required [...]
Lloyds Banking Group is warning customers that the formation of a new group from the merger of Lloyds TSB and HBOS could increase the risk of fraud for some customers. The bank is concerned that the merger means criminals are lining up to launch phishing attacks and extract account details from customers adjusting to the [...]
The Government is attempting to allay public disquiet over the prospect of failed banks paying out huge sums in executive bonuses. The Treasury says it will be reviewing remuneration for those in the banking sector over the coming year and Treasury Secretary, Yvette Cooper, has indicated that banks that go ahead and reward failure could [...]
The row over bonuses for bank executives continued over the weekend, with Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling, announcing an independent inquiry into the operations of banks, aimed at making them function more responsibly. Risk management will be at the heart of the study, which will take into account whether bonus structures have encouraged excessive [...]
The Insolvency Service has reported a sharp rise in the number of companies going bust. The figures, which cover England and Wales, show a 51.6% year-on-year rise in corporate liquidations in the final quarter of 2008, to 4,607. Compared with the third quarter of last year, the number of businesses wound up because of debt [...]
Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has once again gone cold on plans to sell its insurance business. The unit, which includes the Churchill, Direct Line, Privilege and Green Flag brands, was put up for auction last year when the bank hoped to raise around £7 billion from a sale. Zurich, US insurer Allstate, Allianz, Italy’s [...]
The Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee yesterday voted in favour of a 0.5% cut in the base rate, to 1%. The Bank has been cutting the base rate aggressively since October when it stood at 5%, in efforts to ease the plight of individuals and businesses during the economic downturn. Savers have suffered as [...]
Abbey has reported a 20% rise in pre-tax profit for 2008. Consumers opened 572,000 new accounts with the bank during the year, many will have been searching for a safe place to keep their cash amid chaos in the UK banking sector. The Santander-owned bank also announced that its share of new mortgage lending increased [...]
New research reveals the extent to which Britons depend on credit to meet their day-to-day living costs. According to the latest Consumer Credit Report by Post Office Credit Cards, up to 10.3 million UK adults (or 32% of the adult population) are expecting to use plastic to pay for daily purchases during the early part [...]
The Financial Institutions Group of Deutsche Bank (part of the Global Banking division) has been significantly bolstered with the addition of a dozen new appointments. The appointments, including managing directors, vice presidents and associates, are made in London, Hong Kong and New York. Eric Heaton, David Heaton, Richard Slimmon and Richard Gibb are the most [...]
