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 [...]
AI adoption at UK banks lags behind US rivals March 17, 2025 UK banks are playing catch up to their US and European counterparts on AI adoption, new research has revealed. Evident Insight’s latest Responsible AI Report showed US banks led the way for AI specialists, with 20 positions alone at JPMorganChase – three times the average lender. Co-founder and co-chief executive of Evident Insights Alexandra Mousavizadeh [...]
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 [...]
Lloyds shares worth 70p say analysts March 4, 2025 Peel Hunt analysts have raised their price target on Lloyds shares by 17 per cent to 70p and slapped a ‘Hold’ rating on the FTSE 100 lender. The analysts cited strengthening income trends and reduced sensitivity to interest rates as the top factors driving the bank’s “top-line performance.” The banking giant‘s full-year profits fell 20 per [...]
Pay for Lloyds Bank’s top bosses jumps to £5.6m February 28, 2025 Lloyds Bank’s top executives have received a bumper windfall despite the lender’s rocky results and mass closure of high-street branches. In its annual report published on Thursday, the bank said its top two bosses would receive nearly £2m in bonuses in 2024 in addition to their regular payouts. Chief executive Charlie Nunn will receive a [...]
Thousands of customers unable to use Lloyds, Halifax and TSB banking apps February 28, 2025 Thousands of Lloyds Group banking app users across the UK have reported technical difficulties when trying to access their money. Outage monitor Downdector recorded issues affecting the Lloyds banking app spike over 4,000 on Friday morning. Users across the group’s subsidiaries Lloyds, Halifax, TSB and Bank of Scotland raised the alarm posting error notices across [...]
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, [...]
Motor finance: Bank of Ireland sets aside £143m provision February 24, 2025 Bank of Ireland joined the UK’s biggest lenders in setting aside a lump sump for potential motor finance payouts as it posted its annual results. The bank recorded a pre-tax profit of €1.86bn (£1.5bn) for 2024, which was four per cent down on the €1.94bn (£1.6bn) reported in 2023. The bank set aside €172m (£143m) [...]
FTSE 100 lenders pocket record total profit February 21, 2025 Standard Chartered was the last of the FTSE 100’s biggest banks to release its annual results, as analysts praised the strong performance across all of the Big Five. Barclays, HSBC, Natwest, Lloyds and Standard Chartered booked an all-time high of £50.3bn in profit in 2024 and returned £35bn to investors. Russ Mould, investment director at [...]
Lloyds shares jump despite profit slump February 20, 2025 Lloyds Banking Group’s shares jumped three per cent following market open, despite recording a profit hit after the firm set aside additional funds for potential motor finance payouts. The FTSE 100 lender’s pre-tax profit was down 20 per cent at £6bn, compared to £7.5bn in 2023. Analysts estimated the bank’s profit before tax at £6.5bn, [...]