Another 650 UK jobs are to go at Lloyds Banking Group, with back office staff at the group’s Nottingham and Chester offices bearing the brunt of the cull. In addition, the closure of the bank’s Halifax-branded agencies based in solicitors’ and estate agents’ offices could result in total job losses of 1,850, according to trade [...]
Virgin Money has followed one of its competitors in announcing a change to the order of payments on its credit card accounts, so that monthly repayments go towards paying off the most expensive debt first. As with MBNA, which outlined similar plans earlier this month, Virgin customers will have to wait until 1st September for [...]
Research from a firm that specialises in “incremental revenue” products suggests that half of all consumers are interested in annual membership packages that provide insurance, travel and lifestyle benefits, if buying a package cost significantly less than purchasing the benefits individually. However, 73% of those questioned said they were not currently being offered any such [...]
The European Central Bank (ECB) has steadied the markets by announcing that it has lent 171 banks a total of €131.9 billion in three-month money. The figure is healthily below the €150 billion to €250 billion expected, given that tomorrow the ECB is due to be repaid €442 billion in 12-month loans to banks. However, [...]
The UK’s biggest provider of ISAs, Lloyds Banking Group, has lent its support to the recent OFT announcement regarding cash ISAs, intended to reduce transfer times and enhance transparency. In 2010 Lloyds TSB is to publish savings interest rates on all customer savings accounts statements (both online and paper), going beyond the OFT recommendation. This [...]
International payments specialists VocaLink has announced it is enabling EBS Building Society to become SEPA Direct Debit (SDD) compliant via VocaLink’s SEPA Accelerator offering. This will enable EBS to become SDD compliant throughout its branch network as well as providing the firm with interoperability with banks and CSMs. EBS also becomes one of the first [...]
The recent changes introduced by the OFT in a bid to arrest the inefficiencies of the cash ISA market have been heartily welcomed by Consumer Focus, which has described the measures as the first step towards dragging the UK’s £158bn cash ISA market into the 21st century. Consumers could stand to save £14.5m by the [...]
As Deaf Awareness Week begins running from 28 June – 4 July), the RNID is encouraging banks and other financial services firms to ensure that they are providing full accessibility to those in the UK who are hard of hearing or deaf. With 9 million Britons in this position, they present a substantial proportion of [...]
In a trading update, Standard Chartered has announced that it is “tracking towards another strong performance in the first half of 2010″. As at the end of May, income and profit were ahead of the comparable period in 2009 and the group is expecting “double digit growth over the second half of 2009″. The emerging [...]
New rules issued by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) have been welcomed by the Chartered Insurance Institute (CII). The rules pertain to mortgage advice, and seek to guarantee that those who offer such advice will be held accountable for their professional guidance. The FSA’s new rules will dictate how mortgage advisers and those who arrange [...]
New research from customer insight and database marketing specialist GI Insight has revealed that customers believe their banks have done a good job of getting to know them. This compares relatively well with other sectors (such as car manufacturers and estate agents), who have yet to engage to the same degree as the banks. The [...]
The Board of Directors of Banco Sabadell have announced that they are to make a takeover bid for all the shares in Banco Guipuzcoano. Every eight ordinary shares in Banco Guipuzcoano will become five ordinary shares of Banco Sabadell, and five mandatory convertible three-year bonds. Banco Guipuzcoano’s non-voting preference shares will gain an extra one [...]
Prospects for borrowers look bleak with the announcement that banks will need to hold “significantly higher” amounts of capital at some point after 2012. In a statement issued by ministers attending the G20 summit in Toronto, banks have been tasked with raising their Tier 1 capital to withstand a shock similar to that of the [...]
The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) has reported that activity in UK financial services grew in the last three months, at the fastest rate since September 2007. Banks were the only sub-sector to see business volumes fall, although profitability rose for a third successive quarter “supported by strong growth in fee / commission income, falling [...]
Further consolidation is to be expected among UK building societies, once the sector recovers from its recent spate of mergers. In its latest Financial Stability Report, the Bank of England suggest: “The industry could coalesce around a small number of stronger, larger societies.” According to the report, “several societies expanded into risky lending activities, such [...]
The five pound note should become more readily available from today as Bank Machine launches a network of free-to-use ATMs dispensing all withdrawals in fivers. The Bank of England has been working to encourage retailers and banks to get more of the notes into circulation and 21 cash machines have now been devoted to the [...]
In its latest Financial Stability Report, the Bank of England notes that write-off rates on unsecured lending to UK households have recently been lower than expected by lenders. However, write-off rates on credit card lending hit a record high of 10.4% in the first quarter of 2010, amounting to £1.25 billion. The Bank warns that [...]
The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has recommended far-reaching reforms to the regulation of insolvency practitioners. In a recent study, the watchdog found that secured creditors such as the banks that appoint insolvency practitioners, have a strong incentive to control fees and direct the activities of practitioners, in the 63% of cases where there are [...]
The UK subsidiary of Unisys Corporation has completed a database consolidation initiative with Nationwide Building Society that will provide the financial institution with significant savings in energy and operational costs by 2012. The move is core to Nationwide’s Data Centre Transformation initiative and involves the transfer of 600 production databases and 170 systems from increasingly [...]
