Challenger banks Virgin Money and Yorkshire Building Society call for RBS and Lloyds to be split up November 10, 2014 Small lenders are calling on the competition watchdog to look at breaking up RBS and Lloyds, arguing the market is too focused on giant players. The Yorkshire Building Society (YBS) and Virgin Money have both written to the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to push for the big banks to carve out more new challengers from [...]
Lloyds Banking Group may sell Avant Homes for £170m November 3, 2014 Building firm Avant Homes is considering an offer from a consortium of investment companies made up of Alchemy Partners, Angelo Gordon and Avenue Capital, a source close to the discussions has confirmed. All three of the bidding companies are focused on making distressed investments. Avant is being sold by Lloyds Banking Group, with KPMG advising [...]
Lloyds share price falls as Vince Cable set to urge bank not to close the last branches in any town October 28, 2014 Lloyds yesterday revealed a new three-year plan to cut 9,000 jobs and close 150 branches, as part of its longer strategy to adapt to the increasingly digital banking market. But business secretary Vince Cable is expected to step in to urge all banks to make sure no town is left without a branch. Its previous [...]
Lloyds’ branch closure tight-rope: Antonio Horta Osorio’s balancing act October 28, 2014 Lloyds is chopping 150 branches over the next three years, so it seems an odd time to claim the bank in fact values the traditional high street sites more than the other lenders. But that is exactly what chief executive Antonio Horta Osorio says he is doing. It is a fine line to tread, [...]
Lloyds branch closures are just the start: The UK is dramatically over-banked October 28, 2014 IT MIGHT be an uncomfortable truth for many to hear, but the UK is dramatically over-banked for the digital age. There are a little less than 10,000 bank branches across the UK, far fewer than the approximately 38,000 in France, for example. But for the UK, this is still too many. Lloyds Bank seems to [...]
Lloyds share price opens lower as it confirms 9,000 job losses and 150 branch closures October 28, 2014 Shares in Lloyds Banking Group opened 1.2 per cent lower this morning as it confirmed the loss of 9,000 jobs and closure of 150 branches over the next three years, despite a 35 per cent rise in profits. In a statement, the bank confirmed its efforts to rebalance would lead to redundancies. We anticipate a [...]
Lloyds on FTSE loserboard over tests on capital – London Report October 27, 2014 BRITAIN’S top equity index fell yesterday, weighed down by financials after Lloyds only narrowly passed a regulatory health check of Europe’s banks. The FTSE 100 index fell 0.4 per cent to 6,363.46 points, after managing a slight rebound last week from 15-month lows touched earlier in October. The index has come down from a more [...]
Lloyds share price falls after stress test results revealed October 27, 2014 Lloyds Banking Group's share price fell two per cent on Monday trading, with analysts warning it could yet fail the Bank of England's more stringent stress test. The European Banking Authority had tested 123 banks’ capital buffers against a fictional crash, with a jump in unemployment, a renewed recession and falling house prices. Banks [...]
Shareholders to take on Lloyds over HBOS deal October 27, 2014 FORMER Lloyds TSB shareholders are gearing up for legal action over the ill-starred acquisition of Halifax Bank of Scotland (HBOS), in one of the largest funded actions ever started in the UK. Lawyers acting for thousands of retail and City institutional investors are looking for millions of pounds from the bank over claims it misled [...]
Lloyds to chop 9,000 staff to save more costs October 22, 2014 LLOYDS Bank is planning to cut another 9,000 jobs, on top of the 15,000 the lender has chopped since 2011, it emerged last night. The new round of cost cutting will hit another 10 per cent of the workforce, according to Sky News. Analysts believe the bank has far too many branches to be efficient. [...]