Walkie Talkie building scorches Londoners August 27, 2013 LONDONERS who pass by the Walkie Talkie skyscraper are in for a surprise – because the recently completed building at 20 Fenchurch Street is reflecting a beam of ultra bright light onto the street below. The hotspot on Eastcheap near Monument station is forcing pedestrians to shield their eyes, with one passer-by describing it as [...]
UK tops list of best places in Europe to be an entrepreneur August 27, 2013 CUTTING corporate taxes is helping make the UK a more attractive place to set up a business, according to a major study of entrepreneurship across the globe, published yesterday. A total tax rate of 35.5 per cent is well below the 49.7 per cent average across the G20, and helps make the UK the best [...]
Public betting market to challenge Carney’s rule August 27, 2013 AS BANK of England governor Mark Carney gears up to give his first public speech today, a public betting market is being launched to challenge official predictions for unemployment and inflation. Working with bookmakers Paddy Power, the Adam Smith Institute (ASI) think tank is rolling out two betting markets, turning to UK punters for predictions [...]
Foxtons leads way as London awaits batch of new issues August 27, 2013 THERE are still a few days of the summer holidays left for some, but yesterday felt like a proper beginning of term day for the rest of us. For one thing, David Cameron returned from his Cornwall holiday to call for the return of Parliament tomorrow to consider the merits of military intervention in [...]
Bank credit risk review to level playing field August 27, 2013 BIG BANKS across the world are ahead of schedule implementing incoming rules on capital buffers, global regulators said yesterday. But the Basel Committee also warned regulators will have to hammer out agreements on how the riskiness of loans is worked out to ensure rules are applied fairly. Currently risk weightings vary considerably from bank to [...]
Exchanges to discuss outage August 27, 2013 AMERICA’S key exchanges will meet with the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) next month to discuss last week’s Nasdaq trading outage, the SEC said yesterday. The meeting will “address the market data dissemination system involved in last week’s halt and other critical infrastructure issues,” the SEC said. It will be headed by [...]
US borrowing limit looming August 27, 2013 AFTER telling Congress that the US government will hit its borrowing limit in October, treasury secretary Jack Lew yesterday insisted that President Obama will not negotiate over raising the debt ceiling. Lew wrote to the House of Representatives’ speaker, John Boehner, saying: “Extraordinary measures are projected to be exhausted in the middle of October”. Yesterday, [...]
What the other papers say this morning – 28 August 2013 August 27, 2013 FINANCIAL TIMES Nationwide to buy back securities Nationwide, the UK’s biggest building society, has launched an offer to buy back up to £715m in bond-like instruments in an drive to shore up its capital base after a multibillion pound shortfall. Following demands by regulators to boost its capital ratio, Nationwide has put out a tender [...]
Business split over future of High Speed 2 August 27, 2013 THE BRITISH Chambers of Commerce (BCC) yesterday insisted its members are “completely behind” the High Speed 2 railway – despite a rival business organisation withdrawing its support for the project. John Longworth, director general of the BCC, told City A.M. that an entirely new line is still the only way to avoid a capacity crunch on [...]
JP Morgan asked for $6bn to settle claim over mis-selling August 27, 2013 JP MORGAN Chase is being asked for $6bn (£3.9bn) by US housing finance regulators to settle allegations it mis-sold mortgage-backed bonds, it emerged yesterday. The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) sued the bank in 2011 over allegations it mis-sold bonds backed by sub-prime mortgages to government guarantors Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The FHFA, which [...]