Standard Chartered registers $190m charge on Iran war April 30, 2026 Standard Chartered’s impairment charges jumped in the first quarter as the bank set aside a hefty sum to cover volatility in the Middle East. The FTSE 100 giant booked $296m in credit impairment charges, with $190m of this coming from “precautionary management overlays” related to the war in Iran. The Asian-focused bank’s activity in the [...]
Monzo lost one current account switcher for every two gained in 2025 April 30, 2026 UK fintech darling Monzo lost one current account switcher for every two it gained last year. The neobank registered just over 20,000 new switchers in the final quarter, but over half of this was offset by the 11,000 thousand outflows. The picture for the final few months of the year mirrors the picture for the [...]
Lloyds fires bank tax warning shot as industry ‘ripe for cash grab’ April 29, 2026 Lloyds Banking Group has warned the Treasury not to look at the banks for a tax raid as the industry sets its sights on booming profits in 2026. The FTSE 100 giant beat profit expectations by a cool £200m in the first-quarter after booking £2bn. This was also followed up by an upgrade to its [...]
Santander UK profit slides after motor finance reserves balloon April 29, 2026 Santander UK’s profit took a knock in the first quarter of the year after the bank made another hefty top up to its motor finance provisions. The UK arm of the Spanish banking giant booked a £202m pre-tax profit for the first three months of 2026. This was down 44 per cent from the same [...]
Lloyds shares drop after income upgrade on higher interest rates April 29, 2026 Lloyds Banking Group has upgraded its income targets for the year as the bank expects to bring in more cash as interest rates remain elevated from the Iran war. The FTSE 100 financial giant – which counts Lloyds Bank, Halifax and Bank of Scotland among its subsidiaries – said it expects net interest income to [...]
AI could trigger a PPI level scandal in ‘two weeks’ April 29, 2026 A multi-billion pound scandal like PPI could happen within just “two weeks” as UK finance firms plough ahead with deploying AI despite uncertainty around governance standards, a fresh report has claimed. The UK’s financial services sector faces a “capability gap” when deploying AI, according to a report from regulatory compliance firm Zango. The research pulled [...]
Banking on a storm: Natwest weathers first of AGM climate rows April 29, 2026 Natwest faced a prickly time in its Edinburgh AGM and in this week’s column Samuel Norman looks at whether fun and games could be in store for its peers. Also on the agenda this week – Revolut heads for some Spanish sun. Natwest chair Rick Haythornthwaite suffered a thorny reception on Tuesday at the bank’s [...]
Why Mythos could destroy Britain’s banking industry April 28, 2026 AI is compressing the time between discovering a weakness and exploiting it – and that’s a huge threat to the banking industry, says Raj Abrol The banking industry has spent the past year framing artificial intelligence as a productivity tool: faster coding, documentation, customer service and analysis. Anthropic’s Claude Mythos Preview, and Project Glasswing, the [...]
Lloyds hit with highest FCA complaints as finance firms fork out £240m April 28, 2026 Lloyds Banking Group led the pack as the most complained about financial services group in the second half of 2025 as the industry forked out a near-quarter of a billion pounds to dissatisfied customers. Across its subsidiaries, the FTSE 100 giant was hit with a storm of 187,516 grievances to the UK’s financial watchdog in [...]
Natwest forced to pause AGM after climate protest April 28, 2026 Natwest was forced to pause its annual general meeting on Tuesday following a disruption from climate protesters. The FTSE 100 giant’s chairman Rick Haythornthwaite adjourned the meeting – taking place at Natwest’s Gogarburn headquarters in Scotland – after protesters disrupted his address to shareholders. Campaigners had been calling for a protest vote against Haythornthwaite in [...]