Hesitant firms not borrowing October 20, 2014 Lending to businesses continues to fall despite efforts to incentivise banks to lend, a Bank of England report said yesterday. Net lending to all firms fell by £3.9bn in the second quarter of 2014. This comes in spite of an extension of the Bank’s Funding for Lending scheme to January 2015. Lending to small and [...]
Libor overhaul in bid to stop manipulation by bad banker and brokers October 20, 2014 Key interest rate Libor will be based on huge numbers of transactions in future, as part of its new administrator’s plan to stop bad bankers and brokers trying to fiddle the rate. It is now being run by Intercontinental Exchange’s Benchmark Administration (IBA) unit, which has come up with a wide-ranging plan in an effort [...]
Bank of England to investigate crucial CHAPS payments system crash October 20, 2014 Bank of England governor Mark Carney last night announced an independent probe into the fault which yesterday crashed the CHAPS payment system, used to channel large payments around UK accounts. The Bank of England described it as a “technical issue related to some routine maintenance of the Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) payment system”, [...]
Current account complaints up after switching banks October 20, 2014 Complaints about current accounts have doubled since the programme came in to allow customers to switch to another bank in just seven days, the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) said today. From April to September a total of 15,771 people complained to the FOS about their current accounts, up from 7,578 in the same period of 2013. As well [...]
Buffett left red faced as IBM’s shares tumble October 20, 2014 JUST days after legendary investor Warren Buffett admitted that buying a near four per cent stake in Tesco was a “huge mistake”, another one of US fund manager’s big gambles is looking shaky. IBM. led by chair and CEO Ginni Rometty, yesterday reported that sales fell four per cent to $22.4bn (£13.9bn) in the three [...]
Former No10 adviser Rohan Silva: City is a boon for tech October 20, 2014 Former No10 adviser Rohan Silva spoke on the challenges and opportunities for startups in London, including the sheer volume of capital available in a city with such a dominant financial sector. “There’s one place in Europe that has a venture capital industry, and that’s London. Lots of places like Berlin, Copenhagen, Stockholm have some funds, [...]
Shire-AbbVie takeover off as James Bowling quits October 20, 2014 Shire last night confirmed its $54bn (£32bn) deal with AbbVie was off, with a $1.635bn break fee owed. In a statement, the Dublin-based pharmaceuticals company said: “In light of the AbbVie Board’s decision to change its recommendation and to advise its shareholders to vote against its Offer, Shire believes that there is now no realistic [...]
London at risk of running out of affordable offices, agents warn October 20, 2014 LONDON could run out of more affordable, secondary office space, property experts warned yesterday, as demand from companies taking up space in the capital continued to gather pace in October. Property advisory firm DTZ said the availability of second hand office space – relied on by start-up and small businesses – was at a 13-year [...]
Cala expansion push into south boosts profits October 20, 2014 CALA Group profits soared last year after the upmarket housebuilder’s acquisition of Banner Homes helped bolster its presence in the affluent south and London’s commuter towns. The Edinburgh-based group, which develops upmarket properties in Scotland, the Midlands and the Home Counties, saw pre-tax profits almost doubled from £12.6m to £27.3m in the year to 30 [...]
TechCrunch Disrupt: Neelie Kroes dodges Jean-Claude Juncker question as AOL’s Tim Armstrong denies Yahoo merger October 20, 2014 European Union digital commissioner Neelie Kroes performed some masterful sidestepping at TechCrunch’s Disrupt conference in Old Billingsgate. The outgoing head enjoyed a grilling from TechCrunch’s editor-at-large Mike Butcher on stage including a cheeky question about her boss, European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker and his rumoured appreciation of fine wine. Butcher jokingly asked if Juncker liked [...]