Close Brothers shares plunge as motor finance costs mount March 18, 2025 Banking group Close Brothers plunged to a £104m loss in the first half of 2025 after the firm set aside provisions for the motor finance scandal. The lender recorded a pre-tax loss in the first half of its 2025 financial year, compared to a profit of £88.1m in the same period of 2024 due to [...]
Howden: Insurance giant set for US deal and £23bn stock market float – report March 15, 2025 Insurance giant Howden is reportedly set for a US takeover deal which could lead to a £23.2bn stock market float, according to Sky News. The British insurance broker, founded by David Howden, anticipates finalising a £7.73bn ($10bn) takeover of American private insurance broker and risk management adviser, Risk Strategies, in the next few weeks, the [...]
Ex-Barclays boss admits to sex with a member of Jeffrey Epstein’s staff March 13, 2025 The former chief executive of Barclays admitted at the High Court on Wednesday that he had sex with a member of staff working for Jeffrey Epstein at an apartment owned by the convicted paedophile’s brother. In his third day of cross examination as part of a legal clash with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), Jes [...]
Unilever rushes to sell underperforming food labels as it focuses on ‘power brands’ March 11, 2025 Unilever will speed up the sale of its underperforming labels and focus on its 30 power brands, according to its chief executive. Fernando Fernandez said the FTSE-100 company would act at a “faster pace” and that the firm has around €1bn (£840m) of brands in its Foods Europe division, which “don’t fit well” with its company’s portfolio. [...]
Barclays apologises after customers unable to access online accounts March 8, 2025 Barclays has apologised after its customers said they have been unable to access their bank accounts online or through the mobile app. There were nearly 1,000 reports of an outage on Saturday, according to outage tracker Downdetector, leaving Barclays customers unable to pay bills or transfer money. The bank has said customers are able to [...]
Natwest, Barclays, HSBC lead months worth of online banking outages March 6, 2025 Nine of the UK’s biggest banks and building societies were down for over 803 hours – the equivalent of 33 days – over the last two years. Fresh data from the Treasury Committee shows a minimum of 158 IT failure incidents at banks had affected millions of consumers in the period between January 2023 and [...]
HSBC’s ‘never had it so good’ say Barclays analysts March 4, 2025 Barclays analysts have said HSBC “never had it so good” as they predicted further growth and upsides for the FTSE 100 lender. Following the lender’s strong full-year performance, the analysts upgraded HSBC’s share price target by 28 per cent to 1,200p. The lender pocketed a pre-tax profit of £25.6bn in 2024, up from £24bn in [...]
Ex-Barclays boss case against FCA over relationship with Epstein goes to court March 3, 2025 Former Barclays boss Jes Staley is seeking to overturn an FCA ban after he was found to have misled the watchdog over his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein
Lloyds Bank analyst ‘favourite’ after annual results February 25, 2025 Analysts have slapped a ‘Buy’ rating on Barclays, Natwest and Lloyds shares following annual results, but said the latter was the “favourite” of the pack. The three UK giants all posted annual results this month, with Barclays and Natwest meeting profit estimates and Lloyds taking a hit. Jonathan Pierce and Priya Rathod, analysts at Jefferies, [...]
Analysts slap 359p price target on Barclays shares after results February 25, 2025 Analysts have reiterated their ‘Buy’ rating on Barclays shares after the lender beat expectations when it reported results earlier this month. The FTSE 100 lender booked a profit before tax of £8.1bn in 2024, ahead of the £8.07bn estimated. “We believe strong capital generation should support a higher valuation and plans to return more than [...]