City of London steps up Brexit diplomacy as financial services white paper is shelved January 23, 2018 The City is seeking to take control of its post-Brexit future by ramping up engagement with EU member states, as it emerges that ministers have shelved plans for a financial services white paper. Meetings have been taking place with weekly envoys from the City of London Corporation and TheCityUK meeting ministers from across the continent. [...]
RBS is selling its London Bishopsgate headquarters in cost-cutting drive January 23, 2018 Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), which is currently majority-owned by the UK government, is planning to flog its London headquarters post-2019 as it pushes ahead with an extreme cost-cutting drive. The bank will move out of the 280 Bishopsgate building back down the road to number 250, which it is planning to revamp later this [...]
Boom time: Clear Bank founder Nick Ogden on his efforts to start a British banking revolution January 15, 2018 Even in the ancient world of City banking, 250 years is a long time. Yet that was how long the UK has had to wait for a new clearing bank until Nick Ogden launched Clear Bank out of the blue last year. A decades-long consolidation of clearing banks – which provide banking services to other [...]
Emma, the “banking app for millennials”, gets FCA approval and announces it will integrate Monzo and Revolut January 12, 2018 London-based Emma Technologies, which calls itself the "banking app for millennials", has today won approval from the City watchdog to provide payment services. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) gave the nod to the mobile-only app just over a month after it launched its beta service, helping consumers avoid overdrafts, find and cancel subscriptions and track [...]
Credit Suisse is shuttering one of its Canary Wharf offices January 5, 2018 Credit Suisse is to pull out of one of its Canary Wharf offices as it ramps up a cost-cutting exercise and culls thousands of jobs. The Swiss banking giant is consolidating its London footprint and plans to reduce headcount in the UK capital to 5,000 by the end of the year. The rationalisation measures are [...]
Deutsche Bank minimum capital requirements increased by European Central Bank January 4, 2018 The European Central Bank (ECB) has forced Deutsche Bank to up its capital holdings for 2018 slightly above the average for European lenders. Deutsche Bank must now maintain a common equity tier one (CET1) ratio of 10.65 per cent during 2018, up from the 9.52 per cent requirement in 2017, it announced today on its [...]
RBS nets £150m in sale of Lombard asset finance unit to Investec and Shawbrook January 3, 2018 Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has sold the offshore operations of its asset finance lender Lombard to Investec and Shawbrook. RBS will net around £150m from selling off its Channel Islands operations of the lender, which was founded in 1861. Investec and Shawbrook will split the Jersey and Guernsey assets division between them, although the [...]
Ex-Barclays trader to pay almost £300,000 for Libor fixing December 19, 2017 A former Barclays trader who was jailed for his role in the rigging of the Libor bank rate must pay almost £300,000 in earnings deemed to be proceeds from the crime. Jay Merchant, who is currently serving five-and-a-half years in prison after being found guilty in July last year, must pay £275,890 in profits along [...]
Five UK banks given Open Banking deadline extension by CMA December 19, 2017 Five UK banks have been given more time by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to comply with Open Banking regulations. Barclays, Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), HSBC, Santander and Bank of Ireland appealed to the CMA for a delay to the January deadline. Open Banking is a new digital standard that aims to give [...]
The UK is still the world’s top financial services exporter generating more than its next two competitors combined December 15, 2017 The UK has managed to retain the title of the world's biggest financial services exporter by a country mile, new data from TheCityUK has revealed. Last year the tiny island netted a total trade surplus from financial and related professional services of $93.6bn (£69bn) – more than the US and Switzerland, its next biggest competitors, [...]