EU considers crackdown on short-selling following GameStop saga February 25, 2021 Ugo Bassi, director of Financial Markets in the European Commission’s DG FISMA (Financial services), said today the EU may consider tweaking disclosure rules for short selling to create more transparency. During a meeting of the European Parliament’s committee on economic and monetary affairs, he said he could envisage the possibility of lowering the 0.5 per cent [...]
Cathie Wood: Low rates and quantitative easing drive interest in Bitcoin February 25, 2021 Cathie Wood, the well-known U.S. investor and founder of Ark Investment Management, said today that Bitcoin is in its “early days” given its diverse use cases. However, Wood emphasised Bitcoin’s potential as a hedge in a global economy of low rates and quantitative easing. “The dollar is down which is normally a positive cue for [...]
Challenger bank Monument raises £28m ahead of summer launch February 25, 2021 A new challenger bank that wants to target wealthy savers has raised £28m from individual investors ahead of its launch this summer. Monument is targeting “mass affluent” clients, including property investors and entrepreneurs, offering a similar service to private banking. The neobank has said it will offer customers the opportunity to seek property investment loans [...]
Atom Bank taps investors for cash as it targets IPO February 25, 2021 Digital challenger Atom Bank is looking to raise £40m from existing investors as it targets an IPO in the next few years. The neobank Atom is confident it will move to profitability from its mortgage and business lending “within a year”. The optimism contrasts with its fintech peers which have faced difficulties since the outbreak [...]
Lender Amigo swings to a loss, cuts staff and awaits approval of compensation scheme February 25, 2021 Loans lender Amigo sees complaints skyrocket 707 per cent as it swings to a loss
Standard Chartered to cut office space as dividend returns despite profit hit February 25, 2021 Standard Chartered will resume its dividend for the full year despite a sharp fall in profit due to the pandemic, as it unveiled plans to slash office space in the coming years. The London-based lender, which halted its payout last year at the request of the Bank of England, said it will pay a dividend [...]
Goldman Sachs boss David Solomon: Working from home is not the new normal February 25, 2021 Goldman Sachs boss David Solomon: Working from home is not the new normal
City lobby calls for technology boost for financial services sector in Budget February 25, 2021 The UK’s major financial services lobby group has urged Rishi Sunak to speed up the country’s rollout of full fibre broadband in next week’s Budget to ensure the City’s tech infrastructure does not fall behind other major finance centres. TheCityUK said the “existing speed and availability of key infrastructure in the UK, such as broadband, [...]
European bank giants plot payment network to rival Visa and Mastercard February 24, 2021 Members of the European Payments Initiative (EPI), a project launched with the help of 22 banks, said today that a pan-European payment network can be in place by 2025, making the continent “master of its own destiny.” The 22 banks, which include names such as Deutsche Bank, UniCredit and ING, are shareholders in the EPI [...]
Metro Bank losses widen as it takes £124m hit from Covid, sending shares lower February 24, 2021 Metro Bank loss widens as it takes £124m hit from Covid pandemic