HSBC, Natwest and Barclays shares plunge as FTSE 100 downturn deepens April 4, 2025 The FTSE 100’s ‘Big Five’ banks were back in the red on Friday as tariff woes intensified. Shares in Natwest and Barclays slumped nearly ten per cent after China announced retaliatory tariffs against the US, making them the index’s top fallers. HSBC lost over eight per cent. Lloyds and Standard Chartered were not far behind [...]
Motor finance: Lloyds, Close Brothers and Santander brace for ‘shockwaves’ March 31, 2025 Judgement day nears for some of the UK’s biggest lenders as the motor finance scandal heads to the country’s highest court this week. The Supreme Court will decide whether to uphold the Court of Appeal’s October ruling that it was unlawful for banks to pay a commission to a car dealer without the customer’s informed [...]
Lloyds sends 200 senior staff to Cambridge University for AI bootcamp March 28, 2025 Lloyds Banking Group has set out plans to send over 200 senior employees on an 80-hour AI bootcamp at the University of Cambridge. The FTSE 100 lender has joined with education technology firm Cambridge Spark for a “bespoke six-month training programme” to enhance AI capabilities across its management. The first cohort of 30 Lloyds leaders [...]
Banks turn to AI to lead fraud prevention efforts March 23, 2025 As Britain’s biggest banks scale up their technology, lenders are turning to AI to fight fraud, a new report has found. NTT Data’s ‘Banking Trends 2025’ report found over half of UK banks thought generative AI was key to fraud prevention. Lenders have been urged to up their consumer protection abilities after Chair of the [...]
Motor finance: Lloyds and Close Brothers shareholders await landmark hearing March 19, 2025 The eyes of shareholders at Britain’s biggest lenders will be on April’s landmark motor finance hearing, as the scandal heads to the Supreme Court. The hearing, scheduled for April 1-3, will allow car loan providers to challenge the October 2024 Court of Appeal ruling that it was unlawful for banks to pay a commission to [...]
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 [...]