Starling Bank partners with Direct Line to simplify insurance process June 20, 2019 Challenger bank Starling has partnered with insurance firm Direct Line to allow customer account holders to use its app to apply for home cover. The tie-up will allow Starling customers to connect with the insurer’s Churchill brand through the bank’s ‘marketplace’ app. Read more: Starling banks £75m funding round from Merian Global Investors Customers will [...]
Former City minister calls for action on skills shortage June 20, 2019 Former City minister Mark Hoban has today called for urgent action to address the skills crisis facing the financial services sector. Read more: Private sector pay set for growth as skills shortage bites The sector does not spend enough on training, lacks diversity, and its values and culture are not well-perceived, according to a report [...]
CYBG to rebrand as Virgin Money to ‘disrupt status quo’ of UK banking June 19, 2019 Clydesdale and Yorkshire bank owner CYBG will be renamed Virgin Money in a major rebranding to “disrupt the status quo” of UK banking. CYBG acquired Virgin Money last year in a £1.7bn deal and will now adopt its name across its business by the end of the year. Read more: CYBG shares jump as it [...]
Fraudsters target children as young as 11 to launder money June 18, 2019 Identity fraud reached record highs last year and criminals targeted children as young as 11 to launder money. Criminals targeted younger people and pensioners, the UK’s fraud prevention service Cifas revealed in its annual report. The figures showed more than 189,000 fraud cases were reported last year with plastic card fraud proving the most common. [...]
Data breach could be ‘fatal’ for Open Banking sector, treasury committee chair Nicky Morgan warns June 18, 2019 A single data breach at an Open Banking startup could “fatally” damage the developing sector, Nicky Morgan, the chair of the treasury committee, warned today. Open Banking, which allows users to view all their financial information in one place, relies on customers providing their data to a third party. Read more: Are Britain’s banks closed-minded [...]
Sainsbury’s Bank outage: Customers locked out of online banking June 18, 2019 A Sainsbury’s Bank outage spurred customers to take to Twitter today to complain they could not access their accounts online. Read more: The UK banks with the most IT outages Neither the supermarket’s new app nor online banking service wereworking for customers, with Down Detector reporting dozens of complaints this morning. An outage map showed [...]
Facebook launches cryptocurrency with backing of Uber, Visa and Spotify June 18, 2019 Facebook has today published the white paper for its widely anticipated cryptocurrency initiative, with the founding support of several major businesses across multiple sectors. Named libra after the Roman unit of measure once used to mint coins, the cryptocurrency will be managed by an independent eponymous association consisting of 28 initial founding companies. Alongside Facebook [...]
Stiglitz’s 2020 vision: Left-wing economist makes a pitch for the soul of the Democrats June 17, 2019 Who will take on Donald Trump in next year’s battle for the White House? At the time of writing, an absurdly long list of Democratic hopefuls is dominated by Joe Biden, the septuagenarian former vice president who currently enjoys a huge lead in the opinion polls. Read more: President Trump endorses Boris Johnson as next PM [...]
Deutsche Bank to create €50bn bad bank in radical overhaul June 17, 2019 Deutsche Bank has developed plans to create a ‘bad bank’ to hold up to €50bn (£44.6bn) of assets as part of a major overhaul of its trading operations. The bad bank, known internally as the non-core asset unit, would house or sell assets valued at up to €50bn after adjusting to risk – mainly made [...]
RBS shares jump after Saudi bank merger boosts capital June 17, 2019 Royal Bank of Scotland shares have jumped this morning after the bank said a merger between two Saudi banks would boost its capital and reduce its risk weighted assets by £4.7bn. Saudi Arabia’s Alawwal Bank and rival Saudi British Bank (SABB) completed a merger yesterday, creating the third-biggest lender in the kingdom. Read more: Five [...]