Morgan Stanley to move €100bn of assets to Frankfurt amid Brexit December 10, 2020 Wall Street giant Morgan Stanley is planning to move around €100bn (£92bn) in assets to Frankfurt in Germany to protect its business amid Brexit. Bloomberg reported that the bank plans to move the assets in the first quarter of next year, to the subsidiary Morgan Stanley Europe. Morgan Stanley is the latest lender to transfer [...]
How Covid-19 turned out to be Open Banking’s moment to shine December 10, 2020 If you were to ask a UK business in the past few months whether they use Open Banking, they might look confused. But if you asked them whether they’ve been using digital tools to help them forecast their cashflow, see their accounts in real time, issue paperless invoices to clients or apply for a government [...]
Dutch court to probe UBS boss over ING money laundering problems December 9, 2020 UBS has backed its new chief executive Ralph Hamers after a Dutch court ordered an investigation into him relating to money laundering at ING, where he was CEO until earlier this year. ING paid a €775m – or roughly £700m – settlement to Dutch prosecutors in 2018 after it failed to notice money laundering and [...]
Exclusive launch interview: CEO Jason Oakley on Recognise, Britain’s newest bank December 9, 2020 Following FCA approval of a banking license application in November, SME lender Recognise’s banking operations formally launch this morning with four branches in the City, Manchester, Leeds and the Midlands, as well as an app and online platform. To mark the arrival of Britain’s newest bank, City A.M. sits down with CEO Jason Oakley, a former head of [...]
Brexit: City of London lobby slams EU for damaging confidence in UK financial services sector December 9, 2020 The City of London’s most influential lobby group has hit out at the EU for politicising decisions on the UK’s financial services sector’s access to Europe post-Brexit. The CityUK chief executive Miles Celic told a Westminster committee today that Brussels has created uncertainty for Square Mile firms through the “regrettable politiicsation” of the equivalence assessment [...]
Citigroup appoints first female head of Middle East and North Africa operations December 8, 2020 Citigroup has appointed Elissar Farah Antonios as the first woman to head the bank’s Middle East and North Africa (MENA) operations. MENA is Citi’s fastest growing region in its emerging markets portfolio and contributes 30 per cent of the bank’s net income in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Antonios joined Citigroup in 2005 as [...]
Challenger bank Revolut broke even in November December 8, 2020 Revolut broke even last month in the latest indication that the challenger bank is bouncing back from the worst of the pandemic. It is an encouraging sign for the digital bank which tripled its losses to £106.5m, in figures released in August. It came despite a rise in its customer base during the first lockdown [...]
Mind the gap: Study shows savers are 94% worse off than investors December 8, 2020 A substantial investment gap has opened up between those who opted to save and those who decided to invest over the last 10 years. According to a survey by online investment platform Charles Stanley Direct, those who save in cash accounts are on average 94 per cent worse off than their counterparts. For example, £10,000 [...]
UK consumers question sustainability of challenger banks December 7, 2020 UK consumers are worried about the long-term survival of digital challenger banks, according to a new report. Accenture’s Global Banking Study reveals 45 per cent of consumers believed that neobanks would exist in 12 months’ time. Additionally, just a tenth placed “a lot” of trust in the fintechs to look after their data, compared to [...]
Revolut expands business offering with digital payments service December 4, 2020 Challenger bank Revolut is bolstering its business offering as it moves into merchant acquiring allowing businesses to accept online card payments. Revolut’s chief executive Nik Storonsky announced, at this year’s Web Summit, that its business segment had launched an acquiring solution, which will allow businesses in 13 European countries to accept card payments online directly [...]