Challenger banks struggling to compete with big five banks on cash deposits, study finds May 30, 2019 Challenger banks are struggling to break the stranglehold of the big five banks on the UK's £1.3 trillion cash deposit market, despite often paying better interest rates. The UK's big five banks – Barclays, Lloyds, HSBC, Santander and the Royal Bank of Scotland – hold £827bn of the UK's household deposits, a market share of [...]
City Moves for 2 May – Who’s switching jobs at Santander, Intertrust and Bristows? May 1, 2019 Today's City Moves includes Santander, Intertrust and Bristows. Santander UK Santander UK has announced the appointment of Ben Covey as head of private banking, reporting directly to Charlotte Platts, head of wealth. Ben will take up his position from 1 May and will be responsible for the direction and growth of the private banking proposition [...]
Restructuring and foreign currency headwinds hammer Santander profits April 30, 2019 Santander saw profits fall by a tenth as the Spanish banking giant kicked on with a major restructuring in the UK and Poland. Read more: Santander and Barclays face lawsuits over film financing schemes The company was also hit by high inflation in Argentina which hampered earnings further, despite customer growth across its core markets [...]
Can European banks be saved by mergers and a fresh round of deal making? April 16, 2019 The comparisons with US peers just got a lot harder for European banks after a strong showing from JP Morgan to kick off earnings season. But could there be fresh revenue on the way for European investment banks, even if it is of their own making? There’s a mooted capital raising for Deutsche Bank before [...]
Santander and Barclays face lawsuits over film financing schemes April 8, 2019 Santander and Barclays are facing lawsuits from investors in failed film financing schemes. Santander could be sued for the role of legacy bank Alliance & Leicester’s role in part-funding the Imagine film financing scheme while Barclays is beng targeted over a similar scheme known as Timeless Releasing. Read more: HSBC sued for £150m in relation [...]
Gender pay gap data reveals the financial services with wider than average discrepancies April 5, 2019 Some of the large companies with the widest gender pay gaps come from the financial services sector. The deadline for providing gender pay gap data closed last night. For large companies – those employing more than 5,000 staff – the average pay gap was 10.34 per cent. The financial services entities below have gender pay [...]
Finance leaders raise £300,000 for children’s charity Barnardo’s March 22, 2019 More than 200 City finance leaders raised almost £300,000 for children's charity Barnardo's to combat issues like sexual exploitation earlier this week. Read more: Record year for charity lottery fundraising Barnardo's chief executive Javed Khan said the money will fund the charity's “specialist frontline services, which help children recover from their experiences, and build bright, positive futures”. Barnardo's [...]
Dads, parenting, and the gender pay gap – equality at home will lead to fixing inequality in the workplace February 12, 2019 We have all seen the uproar caused by gender pay gaps. Transparency has helped bring about change, but discrepancies in pay will never be eliminated and workplace inequality will never end if employers don’t support equality at home. And while women must continue to be supported at work, men are the other half of the [...]
The bonus is on you: Santander’s recent saga highlights the problems with deferred rewards February 4, 2019 Star investment banker Andrea Orcel was about to take the top job at Santander. And then he wasn’t. It turns out that the bank hadn’t quite realised how expensive Orcel would be, resulting in an unprecedented U-turn, as the board announced that Santander wouldn’t be hiring him after all. While Jose Antonio Alvarez will continue [...]
Banks suffer hundreds of high street closures during 2018 January 31, 2019 Walk-in banks suffered more net closures than any other type of retailer last year, as fast-growing digital rivals lured shoppers away from traditional high street heavyweights. While beleaguered department stores have been stealing the doom-and-gloom headlines for the retail sector in recent months, Britain’s bricks-and-mortar banks saw the greatest retrenchment last year, with some 716 [...]