Bank of England unveils Armageddon stress test scenario ‘more severe than the financial crisis’ Regulation The Bank of England is poised to probe how private markets’ respond to a theoretical financial Armageddon scenario in which stocks plummet and prices soars that industry figures have said is more severe than the global financial crisis. Watchdog officials will scrutinise how alternative asset managers react to the scenario’s five-year downturn in financial conditions [...]
Salesforce tries to prove AI won’t kill software after brutal sector sell-off Tech Salesforce beat Wall Street expectations on Wednesday evening, but the results did little to soothe investor fears that AI could reshape, and potentially undermine, the software industry. The Slack owner reported quarterly revenue of $11.1bn (£8.2bn) during the quarter, up 13 per cent from last year and ahead of analyst expectations, while earnings per share [...]
Starling’s profit slides as falling interest rates bite Fintech Starling’s profit took a dip in the latest financial year as the lower interest rate environment took a chunk out of the digital bank’s bottom line. The UK fintech notched a £217m pre-tax profit, down three per cent from the £223m secured in the prior year. This came as revenue slipped 5.6 per cent to [...]
Cisco’s ‘record highs’ face AI earnings reality check May 13, 2026 Cisco is set to report its quarterly earnings after the bell on Wednesday, and Wall Street is looking for evidence that the software giant’s AI-fuelled rally still has legs. Investors expect the Silicon Valley group to post third-quarter revenue of roughly $15.56bn (£11.52bn), up from $14.15bn a year ago, with earnings per share forecast at [...]
Atlassian AI chief: Firms still aren’t making AI ‘really productive’ May 13, 2026 Atlassian claims businesses are still struggling to turn the AI boom into real company-wide productivity gains, as the software giant pushes deeper into workplace automation with a new generation of AI agents. According to the software giant’s chief AI officer, Tamar Yehoshua, most companies have moved beyond simply experimenting with AI tools, yet many were [...]
AI in banks? It’s all marketing and FOMO May 13, 2026 As banks are rush to beef up their AI capacity Samuel Norman recounts the sentiment shared across the industry at a conference in Copenhagen last week. Like all sectors, banks are chasing the promises of AI. The industry is shrugging off growing fears around job losses and rushing to beef up their AI credentials. Last [...]
Goldman Sachs flagship private credit fund bucks industry sell-off April 7, 2026 Goldman Sachs’ flagship private credit fund has said investors looked to pull less than five per cent of their holdings in the first three months of this year, dodging an industry-wide redemptions wave that has forced some rivals to gate their funds. The investment bank’s direct lending arm, which functions like a private equity fund [...]
Is AI ‘vibe coding’ too good to be true? March 20, 2026 AI means companies can now 'vibe code' their own software products on the cheap – but they may soon discover the risks, writes Paul Armstrong.
Bank of England rebuffs calls to speed up ‘shadow banking’ stress test March 19, 2026 The Bank of England has rejected calls to speed up its inaugural stress test of the private credit industry, despite growing fears that a downturn in so-called shadow banking may pose a systemic threat to the global financial system. In a letter to the House of Lords’ Financial Services and Regulation Committee seen by City [...]
Is AI destroying SaaS? March 10, 2026 In a world where generative AI can increasingly do the work, what will happen to Saas, asks Shamillah Bankyia.