London is no longer the leading hub for this financial product September 6, 2016 London has lost its interest rate derivatives crown for the first time in a survey's 21-year history — and rival financial hub New York has wrestled it from the top spot. Investors and companies use the popular financial product to bet or hedge against unexpected moves in interest rates by central banks. Read more: Global investors back London to retain financial centre crown [...]
SocGen sells Tower Hill office to Hong Kong-listed property developer September 5, 2016 Societe Generale has sold its Tower Hill premises to a Hong Kong-listed property developer, SRE Group. The sale for around £84.5m in cash of the nine-storey office building and linked five-storey car park was formally agreed last Friday but was not reported until today. According to the fine print of the deal, the sale of the building will complete [...]
RBS and Lloyds shares tumble after Deutsche downgrade September 5, 2016 Shares in banks RBS and Lloyds tumbled to the bottom of Britain's blue-chip index today following a downgrade by analysts over at Deutsche Bank. RBS slumped 2.99 per cent to 198.30p per share in mid-afternoon trading, while its peer Lloyds fell 1.92 per cent to 59.79p. Read more: Standard and Poor's attacks negative interest rates as desperate and damaging [...]
Barclays raids JP Morgan for new boss of Corporate and Investment Bank September 5, 2016 Barclays has turned to fellow banking giant JP Morgan for the new boss of its Corporate and Investment Bank, it was announced today. Tim Throsby, currently global head of equities at JP Morgan, is expected to join Barclays as president of Barclays Corporate & International and chief executive of Barclays Corporate and Investment Bank in January next year. Throsby, [...]
Greek banking shares down after reports suggest Eurozone bailout money might be off the table September 5, 2016 Shares in Greek banks plunged today after it was reported there was no further bailout money heading Greece's way from the Eurozone later this month. Alpha Bank closed down 2.7 per cent at €1.79, while Piraeus Bank is down 2.6 per cent at €0.15. Eurobank Ergasias finished down 3.2 per cent at €0.54, and National Bank of Greece is down 2.4 [...]
Now you can open a HSBC account with a selfie September 5, 2016 Forget passwords and pins, but now its not even fingerprints or eye scanning that is replacing these traditional security measures — it's selfies. HSBC will now let its business customers open an account simply using a selfie thanks to facial tracking technology, a type of biometrics which is becoming increasingly popular among firms as a way of making [...]
More than a third of corporate debt is now with challenger banks, but London firms yet to be convinced September 5, 2016 Challenger banks are giving the incumbent players a run for their money, as figures out today show over a third (34 per cent) of UK business mortgages and charges are now issued by the smaller, newer lenders. In particular, 32 per cent of corporate debt is handled by what Avention, which carried out the research, classifies as smaller [...]
Italian prosecutors have dropped a probe into lender Monte dei Paschi September 1, 2016 Troubled Italian lender Monte dei Paschi received much needed positive news yesterday after Milan prosecutors filed a request to shelve an investigation into alleged market manipulation and false accounting by its chief exec and former chairman. It emerged last month that Fabrizio Viola and Alessandro Profumo were being investigated in relation to the way the [...]
Greek banking shares are on the up as lenders start to trickle back into the black September 1, 2016 Greek banks have had a good day on the stock exchange in Athens, with three major players all closing up. Eurobank Ergasias climbed an impressive 5.8 per cent to close at €0.57. Meanwhile, Piraeus Bank closed up 3.4 per cent at €0.15 and Alpha Bank closed up 3.5 per cent at €1.78. The upward swings follow on from strong sets of [...]
London tech startup and Visa partner on blockchain – and want banks’ help September 1, 2016 A London-based blockchain startup has partnered with pay giant Visa and will start testing the technology to make cross-border payments. It's the latest collaboration between an established financial services firm and a startup to experiment with the distributed ledger technology which experts believe could reduce costs and speed up transactions. Read more: These big banks are [...]