Meet Reeves’ outsider tasked with steering the City to growth Banking The City has rolled out the red carpet for the banking watchdog’s new chief after Katharine Braddick, a seasoned veteran of the financial trenches, was named on Friday as the successor to Sam Woods. For a cool £314,000 a year, she’s set to take on the brief of steering the UK’s banking sector. Chancellor Rachel [...]
Top Barclays executive to take the helm at UK banking watchdog Banking A senior Barclays executive and former Treasury official has been appointed as the chief supervisor for British banks and insurers, reinforcing the government’s drive to ease regulations brought in after the 2008 financial crisis. Katharine Braddick, head of strategic policy at Barclays and senior adviser to the chief executive, will succeed Sam Woods as the [...]
Bank of England chief: Interest rate cut is an ‘open question’ Economics The governor of the Bank of England has said that an interest rate cut in March was an “open question” as policymakers suggested the jobs market would remain weak over the coming months. Appearing before the Treasury Select Committee on Tuesday, Andrew Bailey said he had not seen enough evidence to back an interest rate [...]
Hamilton Lane’s Erik Hirsch: We’re seeing a private credit witch hunt February 17, 2026 Depending on which central banking chief you talk to, the burgeoning private credit industry is either a cause of insomnia, a “dark corner” of finance or an arcane lending practice whose participants are behaving like bankers in the run-up to the global financial crisis. To Hamilton Lane boss Erik Hirsch, though, it is simply an [...]
Bank of England Live: Interest rates held in narrow 5-4 call February 5, 2026 Good morning and welcome to the City AM liveblog. The Bank of England’s monetary committee has decided to hold rates in its first meet of the year. Markets – and City AM‘s own Shadow MPC – had placed their bets on a hold as the Bank continues its gradual chop to the base rate. In [...]
Watchdog warns on ‘fire sale dynamics’ risk in repo market February 4, 2026 The global financial watchdog has urged regulators to cast a closer eye over the ways in which leveraged trades in the short-term repo market could amplify financial stability risks worldwide. Regulators at the Financial Stability Board (FSB) are particularly concerned that leveraged investors might be forced to dump their assets in the event of a [...]
Bank of England’s Breeden warns on rivals overtaking UK on innovation February 2, 2026 The Bank of England’s lead for fintech policy and digital currency has laid out a sweeping vision for the UK’s next generation of payments infrastructure amid a rallying cry for the UK to not lag behind its peers. Sarah Breeden, a rate-setter at the central bank and the deputy governor for financial stability, said the [...]
Banks cool on interest rate cut expectations amid forecasting clash January 28, 2026 Top City banks have pushed back their predictions for the Bank of England’s next interest rate cut as forecasters are split on whether high inflation could upend monetary policy decisions. UBS Investment Bank economist Anna Titareva pushed back a call for the Bank’s next cut from February to March after the Office for National Statistics [...]
Bailey warns of ‘urgent need’ to improve resilience in non-bank finance January 28, 2026 The Governor of the Bank of England has warned of an “urgent need” to improve the resilience of the sprawling network of financial firms lending beyond the traditional banking sector. Andrew Bailey said that the financial sector was significantly more robust than it had been before the financial crisis, but warned that regulators still faced [...]
Nigel Farage: Reform will tax the banks even if they don’t like it January 22, 2026 Nigel Farage has confirmed Reform will slap a tax on the UK’s banking giants in the latest dramatic escalation of his party’s tensions with the City. Speaking at the World Economic Forum in the Davos, Farage said: “This will be tough for banks to accept but I am sorry – the drain on public finances [...]