The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee year, to be celebrated in 2012 alongside the London Olympics, could see the introduction of a new Bank Holiday. The TUC and various voluntary organisation are calling for a “Community Day” Bank Holiday some time in late October, in recognition of the role of volunteers in sustaining community life. Executive director [...]
Dubai Islamic Bank (DIB) has reported it achieved net profits of AED1.1bn for the first nine months of the year. This includes impairment provisions of AED403m made during the period, in accordiance with DIB’s prudent and careful approach. Total assets stand at AED82.9bn, with customer deposits at AED66.1bn, both of which are down from the [...]
Equity Bank Group has announced it achieved pre-tax profits of Ksh1.6bn in the third quarter, equal to the profits achieved in Q2 and greater than the Ksh1.1bn profits made in Q1. The last year has seen the Kenyan banking group incur heavy investment costs, which have been balanced by strong balance sheet growth. Chief Executive [...]
ING has announced that it is to utterly separate its banking and insurance operations as part of its Back to Basics programme. The shift will be phased in over a four year period, with the insurance operations being divested, and the bank looking at a range of options such as initial public offerings and sales. [...]
Dutch bank ING has released its preliminary financial results for the third quarter of 2009. The bank is expecting an underlying net profit of €750m, which would be over a billion euros better than the €568m loss incurred in Q3 2008 and substantially better than the €229m net profits made in the previous quarter. After [...]
The nationalised element of Bradford & Bingley (B&B) is to be split into one good and one bad bank, The Times has reported. The move is aimed at speeding up the repayment of the £18.4 billion in taxpayer money used to bail out of the lender in September of last year, when B&B came close [...]
Financial Services Secretary, Lord Myners, is challenging the level of fees charged by investment banks for their services, and has threatened government action if fees for underwriting and advice are not reviewed. Investment banks provide advice on mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and underwrite share issues, taking up any unsold stock. According to Lord Myners, institutional [...]
Swiss investment bank UBS has announced that John F. Bradley has joined the firm as group head of Human Resources. The appointment is made with immediate effect, and Bradley is now based in Zurich. He brings with him extensive banking experience, and spent more than a quarter of a century with JP Morgan Chase & [...]
The Financial Ombudsman Services (FOS) has written to the UK’s banks demanding that customers who claim to be suffering financial hardship and request the return of overdraft charges are treated fairly. The Office of Fair Trading has been trying to establish the legality of the charges – widely regarded as exorbitant – under the 1999 [...]
Halifax and Bank of Scotland are introducing new charges for current account customers and withdrawing interest payment on accounts that are in credit. From 6th December, the banks will apply flat charges of £1 per day for agreed overdrafts of up to £2,500 and £2 a day for agreements over £2,500. For those with unarranged [...]
Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB) has achieved a milestone in its network expansion, as its 200th branch opened in south Sudan, in Juba. KCB operates across Eastern Africa and has branches in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Southern Sudan and Rwanda, and recently opened its sixth branch in Sudan. Group Chief Executive Martin Oduor-Otieno has said that the [...]
SunTrust Banks, Inc. has reported it incurred net losses of $377.1m, compared to net income of $304.4m made during the third quarter of last year. It also marked an increased loss from Q2 2009, when the firm’s losses were $133.5m lighter than those of the third quarter. Net loss per average common share was $0.76, [...]
Piper Jaffray Companies has reported it made net income of $9.3m during the third quarter of the year, equating to $0.47 per diluted common share. This compares favourably with the $27.5m loss (or $1.75 per diluted common share) incurred in the corresponding period last year, but is something of a decline from the $11.6m profit [...]
Investment bank Credit Suisse has released its financial results for the third quarter, which saw it record profits of CHF 2.4bn. The net income figure marks a significant increase on the CHF 1.57bn achieved in the second quarter, and net revenue increased somewhat from CHF 8.6bn to CHF 8.9bn from Q2 to Q3. In the [...]
Wells Fargo has announced that Q3 saw it achieve its third consecutive quarter of record earnings, with net income soaring by 98% to $3.2bn. For the first nine months of the year net income stands at $9.5bn, up 75% compared to the same period in 2008. Diluted earnings per common share rose by 14% to [...]
US Bancorp has today released its financial results for the third quarter of 2009. The firm made a net income of $603m, equivalent to $0.3 per diluted common share. In the previous quarter the bank achieved net income of $471m, and this quarter marks a return to rising profits from Q2 when net income fell [...]
Jefferies Group, Inc. has released this financial results for the third quarter, ended 30 September. Net revenues hit a record high, skyrocketing by 155% from the previous year to reach $700m. Quarterly revenue was also a substantial improvement on the Q2 figure of $578m, itself a record for Jefferies. The firm also achieved record revenues [...]
Bonuses paid in the UK banking sector could hit £6 billion in 2009, according to a report from the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR). The figure would represent a 50% rise on the £4 billion paid in 2008, when City bonuses fell back from a bumper windfall of £10.2 billion in 2007. The [...]
