How traditional banks can keep ahead of their fintech noisy neighbours in innovation race May 16, 2016 There have been plenty of reports about fintechs being bad news for banks, but in actual fact they may be the best thing to happen to traditional banks and the banking sector for a long time. No, really. Many have warned that the introduction of digitally savvy options into the retail banking sector will prove [...]
RBS mulls sale of Williams & Glyn and NatWest May 15, 2016 Royal Bank of Scotland's advisers are reportedly weighing a shock move to divest both Williams & Glyn and NatWest, as the bank seeks to accelerate sell-off plans. According to the Sunday Telegraph, RBS advisers, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Robey Warshaw, are weighing the NatWest move in a bid to ease tech problems behind the Williams [...]
Libor probe dropped in Germany for ex-Deutsche Bank staff May 15, 2016 Frankfurt prosecutors late last week dropped a case into five former Deutsche Bank staff for alleged Libor manipulation. It is understood that it could not be established that any erroneous information submitted by staff could have influenced the rate, and that the law did not provide any basis for prosecution. "We investigated whether there was a violation of [...]
These are the 18 highest-paying jobs in London’s finance sector May 13, 2016 If you're thinking of moving into the finance sector, chances are the salary is going to be one of your main reasons. But which roles offer the megabucks? Salary benchmarking site Emolument.com has crunched the numbers – and found that with an average salary of £178,000 and a bonus almost as high, at £148,000, bankers in [...]
Standard Life sleepwalks towards a pay revolt May 13, 2016 First Schroders, now Standard Life: it’s turning into a season of grand City institutions firing bullets into their own feet. Fresh from the calamitous handling of Michael Dobson’s elevation to the chair at Schroders, its Scottish-based peer is making an even bigger pig’s ear of a process it should be able to navigate in its [...]
Carney ignites recession row with Brexit warning May 13, 2016 Bank of England governor Mark Carney sparked an intense political row yesterday after he said that a vote to leave the European Union could plunge Britain into recession. Former chancellor Lord Lamont slammed Carney’s “unwise” choice of words, while two Conservative members of the influential Treasury Select Committee – which is appointed by Parliament to [...]
Lloyds shareholders won’t do what they’re told May 12, 2016 Shareholders at Lloyds Banking Group have clearly not caught shareholder spring fever, passing all resolutions at its AGM today, despite an influential shareholder advisory group urging them vote against the remuneration report. Shareholders approved the remuneration report by 97.7 per cent, which puts chief executive Antonio Horta-Osorio in receipt of £8.8m for 2015, down from £11.5m the year [...]
Safe as houses: Aldermore Group mortgage origination up 60 per cent May 12, 2016 Aldermore Group today revealed that the number of loans it had created in its first quarter of the year had leapt up, causing its share price to shortly follow suit. Loan origination for the challenger bank rose to £814m for the first quarter of 2016, up 43 per cent on the prior year's £568m. Mortgage origination was [...]
Royal Bank of Scotland to slash 200 UK jobs and shut branches May 12, 2016 Royal Bank of Scotland is planning to slash around 200 jobs from its retail unit, in the latest round of cuts to the lender's workforce as part of a wider restructuring of the business. The planned job losses, which were reported by Reuters, mean that RBS will have axed more than one in 10 positions at its [...]
Barclays rules out Android Pay, going it alone with own mobile pay app May 12, 2016 Barclays is going it alone when it comes to mobile pay, rolling out its own contactless payment app on Android to all its customers, eschewing Google's own soon to launch Android Pay service. The bank's customers will be able to pay with just a swipe of their debit card from June with Barclays' Contactless Mobile [...]