Days after making a commitment to its branch network and promising to keep the same number of branches for the next three years, Lloyds Banking Group says it is to make around 1,000 staff redundant, adding to the 28,000 job losses since the Lloyds TSB / HBOS merger, in 2008. According to trade union, Unite, [...]
Lloyds Banking Group has revealed that the Financial Services Authority’s (FSA’s) promised report on the near-collapse of HBOS will focus on activities at Bank of Scotland’s corporate division, pre-2009. The regulator commenced a supervisory review of HBOS in 2009 but last month FSA chairman, Lord Turner, told MPs that a report on the developments that [...]
The Financial Services Authority (FSA) has plans to follow its long-awaited report into failures at the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) with a report into the near-collapse of HBOS. Failures at HBOS have so far resulted in an FSA enforcement investigation which is on going. However, in a recent letter to Andrew Tyrie MP, chairman [...]
Lloyds Banking Group is to shed 15,000 jobs worldwide. The group intends to deliver £1.5 billion of annual savings by 2014 through “better end-to-end processes and IT platforms, a delayered management structure and simpler legal structure”. Cost savings should enable an additional £2 billion of investment over the period 2011 to 2014, focused as follows: [...]
A surveyor is this week standing trial at the Old Bailey over an alleged £10 million mortgage fraud involving Bank of Scotland. According to a BBC report, Mary-Jane Rathie is accused of inflating London property values between May 2007 and June 2009, while working at the Finchley office of Ashdown Lyons. In return, she allegedly [...]
The Bank of Scotland has commissioned research which reveals that Scottish men are outdoing Scottish women when it comes to saving. Thirty-six percent of the men surveyed have a savings account, compared to 33% of women. In addition, 24% of women have no savings at all, 4% more than the 20% of men in the [...]
Bank of Scotland has announced that it is bolstering its commercial team with three appointments, to help enhance the bank’s service to the Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) market in Scotland. Robert Marshall leaves behind his post as regional director of Scotland with Santander to become senior manager of the West of Scotland. Marshall brings [...]
Lloyds Banking Group is selling a portfolio of 40 private equity investments held by its Bank of Scotland Integrated Finance (BOSIF) unit to a new joint venture. Cavendish Square Partners will be majority owned by private equity firm, Coller Capital, with Lloyds holding a 30% stake. The companies in the portfolio, which are all UK [...]
Lloyds Banking Group could be facing substantial losses over the collapse of Kilmartin Holdings. The Scottish property developer has been placed in administration with debts to HBOS in the region of £500 million. Kilmartin built a reputation as a major UK developer, working on projects across the country including Wynyard Business Park in Teeside and [...]
A new report from CB Richard Ellis (CBRE) warns lenders that they should be focusing their attention on the quality of the UK commercial properties against which loans were secured during the last few years. The study, entitled “UK Commercial Real Estate Debt – a Two-Tier Market”, claims over half of the outstanding debt is [...]
Shareholders of Lloyds Banking Group are taking legal action against Bank of England governor, Mervyn King, and Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling. Lloyds Action Now spokeswoman and former BBC Watchdog presenter, Alice Beer, says the group is proposing to ask the High Court to establish whether Mr King and Mr Darling have acted beyond [...]
At the height of the financial crisis the Bank of England was forced to prop up Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and HBOS with loans totalling £61.6 billion. The emergency funding was needed during October and November of 2008 to maintain the stability of the UK financial system and “prevent a loss of confidence spreading [...]
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 [...]
The chairman of Lloyds Banking Group has admitted that the pace at which HBOS’s losses have mounted has come as a surprise. Speaking to the BBC, the outgoing Sir Victor Blank described the losses as “at the worst end of expectations”, adding that when the merger was announced in September of last year it felt [...]
Lloyds Banking Group has posted a pro-forma loss of £4 billion for the first half of 2009. The pro-forma format of the results has been adopted to reflect the impact of the acquisition of HBOS by Lloyds TSB and allows for certain adjustments. Consequently a pre-tax profit of £6 billion has also been reported for [...]
Some Bank of Scotland customers have been charged twice for items paid for using chip and PIN cards. According to a BBC report, technical problems with the bank’s electronic point of sale system were to blame and any amounts overcharged should be back in their rightful accounts today. However, shopkeepers have had to deal with [...]
