(Clearing and Settlement Mechanism – CSM) ICBPI/BI-COMP, Italy’s infrastructure for clearing and settlement of retail payments, run by Banca d’Italia and Istituto Centrale delle Banche Popolari Italiane (ICBPI) and VocaLink (the international payments specialist) have announced they are working together to develop a mechanism to exchange SEPA payments based on European Automated Clearing House Association [...]
MoneyExpert.com has commissioned research showing that Cash ISA savers could stand to double their money if they choose to sign up for a fixed rate account for five years. The website’s research indicates that 1.5% is the average paid on variable rate ISAs, but that fixed rate ISAs earn 3.2% in interest, generating an extra [...]
Britons with mortgages face a rise in annual costs of £700-£1,400 unless the Government cuts the amount of money it intends to borrow. The warning was issued the Policy Exchange think tank in its new report, The Cost of Inaction. With the budget deficit almost hitting 12% of GDP concerns about inflation or defaulting on [...]
Citigroup has announced that New York City Deputy Mayor Edward Skyler is to join the bank as executive vice president of Global Public Affairs. He will join the firm in May, and currently holds the position of New York City Deputy Mayor for Operations. Skyler will be responsible for leadership of all communications, both internal [...]
Russian banking firm VTB Group has released its financial performance figures for 2009. Core income rose by a third from 2008, and hit RUB173.2bn, with net interest income up 34% at RUB152.2bn. Net fee and comission income also rose significantly, up by more than a quarter (29%) to RUB21bn. However, the bank did incur a [...]
DTZ has calculated that commercial property investors across Europe are facing a debt funding gap of €115 billion in the next two years, as loans come up for refinancing. According to the global real estate consultancy, the UK and Spain have the biggest funding gaps at €42 billion and €23 billion respectively, but smaller markets [...]
Consumer Focus is submitting a super-complaint to the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) regarding the UK’s £158 billion cash ISA market. The statutory body, created through the merger of the National Consumer Council, energywatch and Postwatch, estimates that 15 million cash ISA holders could be losing out on interest worth a collective £3 billion a [...]
Ireland’s National Asset Management Agency (NAMA) has set itself the task of cleaning up the Republic’s banking sector by acquiring dodgy loans to the value of €82 billion, between now and February 2011. The agency is initially paying €8.5 billion for loans with a nominal value of €16 billion, and the transfer of an initial [...]
Lazard Ltd has announced the appointment of Carlo Salvatori as chairman of Lazard Italy, a post previously held by Jeffrey A. Rosen. Salvatori was previously chief executive officer of Unipol Gruppo Finanziario, and earlier in his career was chairman of Unicredit Group and CEO of Banca Intesa. Salvatori will assume his new role on 1 [...]
Landesbank Berlin Holding AG has announced its financial results for 2009, which saw the firm enjoy a strong increase in profitability. Despite the ongoing challenges of the economic environment, the bank made pre-tax earnings of €339m, up from €9m in 2008. Earnings after tax were also substantially up, rising from €44m to €272m. Responding to [...]
The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) has reported that activity in the UK financial service sector has been broadly stable over the past three months, and somewhat better than expected. However, in the banking sector, employment fell heavily in the three months to March and the study predicts further reductions for the coming quarter. The [...]
The US Government is proposing to sell its 27% stake in Citigroup. The global banking giant needed three injections of taxpayer cash to ride out the worst of the financial crisis, but has since repaid around $20 billion of its debt. The US Treasury is now preparing to sell shares in the group worth $33 [...]
Global investment bank Nomura has announced the appointments of Abdelkerim Karim and Sam Ruiz as co-heads of Equities EMEA, with both men assuming their new roles on 1 April. Karim has been with Nomura since October 2008, initially leading Equity Structured Products, EMEA. Before joining the firm he worked for Lehman Brothers for almost a [...]
Credit Suisse has announced that it is opening a new branch in Bahrain, located at the World Trade Centre in Manama. The firm was granted its Investment Firm License in September 2008 by the Central Bank of Bahrain. Following the new announcement of the new branch Khaled Salah has been appointed to serve as head [...]
Nationwide Building Society has announced it is launching a new four year Fixed Rate ISA paying 4.25% gross p.a./AER*, available for balances of £1 or more, and accepting ISA transfers-in. Nationwide has also announced some other changes to its ISA range, with a three year Fixed Rate ISA paying 4.15% gross p.a./AER* (for balances of [...]
Landesbank Baden-Württemberg (LBBW) has reported its preliminary financial results for 2009, including a consolidated loss of €1.5bn. This marks an improvement from the loss of €2bn incurred last year, and is in line with the restructuring plan agreed with Brussels. The year as a whole was mixed for the firm, which recorded a pre-tax profit [...]
