George Osborne facing pressure from UK building societies over ‘perverse’ bank surcharge August 19, 2015 The Treasury is under fire from Britain’s building societies, who say that a new tax will cost them at least £630m over the next five years – and choke off £20bn worth of lending. Mortgage lenders want the government to think again. “As you would expect the sector is positively engaging with HM Treasury,” Building [...]
Shawbrook profits soar, almost doubling to £34.8m July 28, 2015 Shawbrook has reported a 94 per cent rise in underlying pre-tax profit after its recent IPO and amid ongoing concerns of a bank surcharge. The figures Shawbrook, the challenger bank founded in 2011 to fill the gap left by high street lenders when they tightened restrictions on lending to small firms, has performed strongly in [...]
Arbuthnot warns over higher bank tax: “This will act as a brake on challenger sector” July 21, 2015 Challenger bank Arbuthnot Banking Group yesterday warned higher taxes on bank profits will hurt lending to the real economy The firm, owner of private bank Arbuthnot Latham and half-owner of listed entity Secure Trust Bank, also called on chancellor George Osborne to calculate bank taxes on the size of their balance sheets. The [...]
George Osborne set for a grilling over new bank tax July 20, 2015 George Osborne is expected to face a grilling from MPs today over the new bank surcharge – set to be introduced next year – when he appears before a Treasury select committee for the first time since the Budget. Mark Garnier, a Conservative minister on the Treasury select committee, told City A.M. that while [...]
Further growth expected from Metro Bank amid talk of IPO July 19, 2015 Metro Bank is expected to reveal its results by the end of this month, as it gears up towards a flotation expected to take place next year. Although whether Metro will finally unveil a profit is unclear, the results are forecast to show that the challenger bank is continuing to grow nicely. If so, it [...]
Challenger banks face an uphill battle as George Osborne widens levy net July 15, 2015 The heads of the UK’s fast-growing crop of challenger banks were entitled to reach for a stiff lunchtime drink as they absorbed the first Conservative Budget for two decades last week. At a stroke, George Osborne’s decision to impose a super-tax on industry profits above £25m undermined everything he has said about broadening competition [...]
Rationale of bank surcharge under fire as IFS think tank blasts George Osborne’s 2015 July Budget July 9, 2015 A leading think tank has criticised the volatility of the UK’s bank levy and the thinking behind a new bank surcharge as part of a wider assault on what it described as a “deeply disappointing” Budget. There would have been 13 different bank levy rates in 10 years by 2020 under Wednesday’s Budget plans, [...]
July Budget 2015: George Osborne pledges lowest corporation tax in G20 but new bank tax hits UK small lenders July 8, 2015 Chancellor pledges lowest corporation tax in the G20 – but casts punitive net over the UK’s small lenders Chancellor George Osborne ushered in a new tax regime for British banks yesterday, dialling down the controversial bank levy while introducing a new corporation tax surcharge for the entire lending industry. In a summer Budget that the [...]
July Budget 2015: Challenger bank share prices plummet – Aldermore, Virgin Money, Shawbrook and OneSavings suffer worst day ever July 8, 2015 Publicly-traded British challenger banks suffered their worst day on record yesterday, as chancellor of the exchequer George Osborne said yesterday that a new corporation tax surcharge would take a significant chunk out of the industry’s profits. Reading-based retail bank Aldermore, which floated on the London Stock Exchange earlier this year, saw its share price [...]
The 2015 July Budget did far too little to reform Britain’s highly damaging taxes on banks July 8, 2015 I've been taken aback in recent months by the number of international bank executives who have been telling me just how damaging the UK’s bank taxation policies are. The global banks constantly review where they base their business around the world. They carry out detailed cost-benefit analyses in pounds and pence, or dollars and cents, [...]