Ecobank Transnational Inc. has announced that it has been given the green light by the Banco Nacional de Angola to open a new representative office in Luanda, Angola. Group Chief Executive Officer Arnold Ekpe has described the approval as a landmark moment for the bank, as it enables the firm to establish itself in one [...]
In its summer forecast, Ernst & Young ITEM Club suggests that interest rates could be “pinned to the floor” until 2014. The report acknowledges that high energy prices and January’s rise in VAT will keep the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) measure of inflation above the Treasury’s target of 2% over the next 18 months. However, [...]
HSBC is reported to be close to finalising a deal for a £600 million finance package that will enable the completion of the Pinnacle skyscraper on London’s Bishopsgate. The building, which has been nick-named the Helter Skelter, is an Arab Investments project that needs to raise a further £130 million from a consortium of other [...]
Seven out of 91 European banks have failed the stress test carried out by the Committee of European Banking Supervisors (CEBS). With no big names among them, the failures are Hypo Real Estate of Germany, ATE of Greece, plus five Spanish regional banks. The EU-wide exercise aimed to assess the resilience of the EU banking [...]
Leigh Bates, Head of Financial Services Practice, SAS, has commented on the latest European stress tests, the results of which are due at 5pm today. Bates has pointed out that recently there has been speculation that the tests will not be fair as differing organisations do not apply them consistently, and that feedback from the [...]
SunTrust Banks, Inc. has announced that in the second quarter of the year it made a net loss of $56m, $0.11 per average common share. This compares positively with the $164m net loss ($0.41 per average common share) the firm incurred in Q2 2009, and the $229m ($0.46 per average common share) net loss of [...]
The Asset Protection Agency (APA) has confirmed that it is on course to make a profit of £5 billion for the taxpayer. The Agency operates the Asset Protection Scheme (APS) that allowed Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and Lloyds Banking Group to offload toxic debt into a government-backed insurance scheme. According to a report in [...]
The Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) paid out £204 million to over 21,000 claimants during 2009/10, with over two-thirds of the payments made for Payment Protection Insurance (PPI) and investment claims. PPI claims increased significantly during the year, to exceed 2,400, and the FSCS says it expects the volume of claims in this area to [...]
KeyCorp has reported its financial results for the second quarter of the year, including net income from continuing operations attributable to common shareholders of $56m, equating to $0.06 per common share. The result contrasts positively with the net loss of $394m ($0.68 per common share) the firm incurred in the same quarter last year. Net [...]
Clydesdale and Yorkshire Banks have mailed 18,000 variable rate mortgage customers to apologise for a miscalculation regarding their payments. The error means that the customers have been underpaying, and will now be required to close the gap between what has been paid and what ought to have been paid. The banks have apologised for any [...]
Bank of Ireland (BoI) is to refund over 43,000 of its own and other banks’ customers, all of whom failed to take their cash from its ATMs when making a withdrawal. ATMs are programmed to gobble up uncollected cash and cards if they are not removed within a certain time limit. However, over a four-year [...]
Credit Suisse has announced its financial results for the second quarter of the year, including net income of CHF1.6bn, a moderate improvement on the CHF1.57bn net income achieved in the same period last year. Diluted earnings per share were CHF1.15. However, net income fell from the CHF2.1bn earnt in Q1 2010. Core net revenues were [...]
Piper Jaffray Companies has announced that in the second quarter of 2010 the firm made a net income of $7.4m, equating to $0.36 per diluted common share. This figure stands in the shadow of the $11.6m ($0.59 per diluted common share) the firm earnt in the corresponding quarter of 2009. However, it is a tremendous [...]
US Bancorp has reported that in the second quarter of 2010 it made a net profit of $766m, equating to $0.45 per diluted common share. This is more than 60% higher than the Q2 2009 net profit of $471m, and 14.5% greater than the $669m net profit achieved in Q1 2010. The bank also saw [...]
Wells Fargo has reported its financial results for the second quarter of 2010, during which it earnt net profits of $3.06bn, a 20% rise from the preceding quarter. The net profit was slightly smaller than the record breaking second quarter of 2009, when $3.17bn was earnt. Diluted common earnings of $0.55 were achieved in Q2 [...]
The members of the Asset Based Finance Association (ABFA), including the country’s leading clearing banks and independent financiers, have found the Government’s Enterprise Finance Guarantee scheme to be of little use to their clients, it has been announced. ABFA’s Chief Executive Kate Sharp has said that the organisation’s survey indicates that the fund itself is [...]
In 2009 consumers took out nearly £12 million of personal loans to help pay for surgical procedures, according to research from Sainsbury’s Finance. The lender has also discovered that £4.77 million of the total (800 loans) was used to pay for cosmetic surgery, while £6.80 million (980 loans) went towards other procedures, such as hip [...]
Bank of America won a magnificent seven awards from the Euromoney 2010 Awards for Excellence. The pick of the awards for the financial institution was being named the Best Bank in the US in recognition of the steps it had taken to make financial life simpler for its customers. The other awards were Best Global [...]
