Lloyds Banking Group is coming under renewed pressure to shed its Scottish Widows subsidiary, the Scotsman has reported. According to Barclays Capital analysts Lloyds Banking Group could stand to see up to £18bn wiped off of its balance sheets by new banking regulations (Basel III). The firm could even end up some £3.6bn short of [...]
SunTrust Banks, Inc. has reported a net loss for the fourth quarter of $316.4m, equating to $0.64 per average common share. This is approximately a $60m improvement on Q4 2008, when the firm incurred a net loss of $374.9m, and on the third quarter of 2009, when the firm made losses of $377.1m. SunTrust has [...]
The Board of the United Bank for Africa Plc (UBA) has announced the appointment of Phillips Oduoza as group chief executive designate, becoming chief executive effective from 1 August. Until becoming chief executive he will collaborate closely with incumbent chief executive Tony Elumelu to ensure that the bank enjoys a smooth transition. Oduoza comes to [...]
The nationalised elements of Bradford & Bingley (B&B) and Northern Rock look set to merge, The Sunday Times has reported. Both lenders have been split into “good” and “bad” banks, with B&B’s retail deposit book and branch network acquired by Santander in September 2008, when the taxpayer was left holding its toxic buy-to-let mortgage book. [...]
A former Bank of England governor, Lord Richardson of Duntisbourne, has died at the age of 94. Gordon Richardson headed the Bank from 1973 to 1983 and is described by current governor, Mervyn King, as “a man of dignity who served the Bank and the country with distinction”. He was educated at Nottingham High School [...]
Private client investment manager Brewin Dolphin has announced the appointment of Lynne Lamont as head of Charities in Scotland and Northern Ireland. She joins the firm from Newton Investment Management, where she spent more than a decade as a fund manager and played a key role in building up a business that handled more than [...]
BB&T Corporation has announced its financial results for the final quarter and full year of 2009. In Q4 the firm made net profits of $194m, equating to $0.27 per diluted common share, down by approximately a third from the $307m made in the same quarter of 2008. However, this does mark a rise from Q3 [...]
Michel Mathieu has been appointed as deputy chief executive officer of French bank Crédit Agricole S.A. After the retirement of Bernard Mary, Mathieu will take on responsibility for LCL and international retail banking with effect from 1 March. He began his career with the firm 27 years ago, as an analyst for Caisse Régionale du [...]
President Obama yesterday expressed his desire for a crackdown on financial institutions, including a Glass-Steagall style separation of investment and high street banking. Although a full separation of the two types of banking is unlikely to be forced, many restrictions will occur leading to the splitting of large financial institutions, with pure investment banks also [...]
Cardiff, rather than London, is the worst place in the UK for card fraud. The annual index published by security specialist CPP shows card crime in the Welsh capital rising by 17% in the last two years, with 37% of residents now victims. The report also reveals that card fraud across the UK has increased [...]
Goldman Sachs has posted net profit of $4.95 billion for the fourth quarter of 2009, compared with a $2.12 billion loss in the same period of 2008. The result takes the investment bank’s 2009 net earnings to $13.39 billion, up from $2.32 billion a year earlier, net revenues having more than doubled year-on-year, to $45.17 [...]
Lloyds Banking Group has announced 585 UK job losses, mostly relating to the closure of its 58-strong network of Black Horse personal loan centres. In 2009, trade union Unite claimed that the 43%-state-owned bank cut around 15,500 posts with redundancies announced on “an almost weekly basis” leaving staff “in a permanent state of anxiety”. The [...]
JPMorgan Chase is reported to be in exclusive talks to buy RBS Sempra. The joint venture commodities unit was taken on board by Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) as part of the ABN Amro acquisition, and is estimated to be worth around $4 billion. It trades commodities such as natural gas, petroleum and petroleum products, [...]
CHL Mortgages, the specialist lender, has announced that throughout its buy-to-let and homeloan mortgage book the situation regarding early and late arrears is improving. Early arrears are down by more than a quarter, according to the figures to the end of December, with a 31% reduction in late arrears. CHL has indicated its belief that [...]
Ghana Commercial Bank Limited (GCB) enjoyed a good night at the Investment Banking Awards 2009, organised by the Banker Magazine of the Financial Times Group, and was named as Bank of the Year 2009. The GCB was named as the best bank of Ghana in the country awards category. In addition, Sam Reynolds-Boison accepted a [...]
