Barclays in legal battle with MFS administrators over part of £160m holding Banking The administrators of collapsed mortgage lender MFS are taking legal action against Barclays after the bank allegedly refused to hand back millions of pounds sat in its accounts. Alix Partners, which was appointed as joint administrators for Market Financial Solutions in February, filed a High Court claim against Barclays, represented by Latham and Watkins, on [...]
Wise denied US banking licence in blow to expansion plans Banking Shares in Wise plunged on Friday after the firm was denied a US banking licence by regulators, setting back the payments giant in its biggest growth market just months after it switched its primary stock market listing to New York. The London-founded fintech said the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) had [...]
House of Lords lashes out at Labour for ‘eliminating’ its oversight of financial watchdogs Regulation An influential group of peers have hit out at the government for ditching the Lords’ oversight of financial watchdogs as part of legislation passed in the King’s Speech. Writing in her capacity as chair of the Lords’ Financial Services Regulation Committee, Baroness Noakes said the government had “eliminated” an “integral” part of the regulatory system. [...]
HSBC coughs up $25m over Australian scam failures June 18, 2026 HSBC has agreed to cough up just shy of $25m after admitting to failures in protecting customers in Australia from scammers. The Australian arm of Europe’s biggest lender was investigated by the watchdog over alleged “widespread and systematic failures” to shield its customers targeted by fraudsters. The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) said it [...]
Revolut pays compensation for waking customer up with push notifications June 17, 2026 The Treasury might be hoping to ease the Financial Ombudsman Service’s workload but there has been no slowdown in perplexing cases. In this week’s column, Samuel Norman tells the tale of Revolut and a sleep-starved customer. Is there an inappropriate time for a push notification? There is, according to one bank customer. Revolut found itself [...]
Investors ‘reluctant’ to splash cash on UK banks amid crisis in Number 10 June 15, 2026 UK banks’ stock prices are being slapped with a political risk premium, City analysts have warned, as turmoil in Downing Street threatens to rock the sector. The FTSE 350 bank index has had a choppy start to the year with financial stocks facing a hammering from the Iran war as investors trimmed their equities exposure. [...]
From mild to wild: What impact will AI have on banking jobs? June 10, 2026 Top banking bosses have issued their AI verdict after Standard Chartered stunned the sector with plans for sweeping job cuts last month. In this week’s column Samuel Norman looks at whether a reckoning could be on the horizon. The big-name banker must have known how the conversation would go when he arrived for lunch with [...]
Banks call for ‘political mandate’ to bolster European defence June 8, 2026 The banking industry has issued a rallying call for a “political mandate” from the UK and EU in a bid to get regulators to open the taps to a fresh flood of defence financing. A new report from UK Finance – which represents the nation’s financial services giants from Lloyds to Revolut – has called [...]
Nationwide income soars on consumer lending boost May 21, 2026 Nationwide booked a hefty jump in its annual income as the building society benefited from a boost in consumer lending and clawed out a bigger market share of mortgage balances. The mutual recorded a 22 per cent jump in total income to £6.4bn, which was up from £5.2bn in the previous year, led by a [...]
Allica lands £350m in British Business Bank scheme aimed at fintechs May 15, 2026 Allica Bank has bagged lending backing from the UK’s state-owned economic development bank, in a scheme designed to bolster high-growth challengers that lend to small businesses. The London-based fintech – which sealed its status as a $1bn unicorn earlier this year – has landed £350m in the British Business Bank’s ENABLE Guarantee scheme, City AM [...]