RBS ups PPI provision as profits slump November 2, 2012 Royal Bank of Scotland has upped its provision for payment protection insurance (PPI) by £400m, as it reported a pre-tax loss for the third quarter. The high street bank has now put aside £1.7bn in total for PPI redress. Over the three months to September, RBS reported a pre-tax loss of £1.26bn, down from £2bn [...]
Direct Line halfway towards £100m cost cutting target November 2, 2012 Insurer Direct Line said this morning it was halfway towards its target of £100m in cost savings, as it reported a drop in quarterly profit. The insurer, spun off by RBS in early October, said it achieved around 50 per cent of its 2014 cost target. Direct Line announced plans to shed about seven per [...]
Bank told forecasts are flawed November 1, 2012 INFLATION has been damaging British living standards and dragging down the economy – but the officials who are meant to keep a lid on prices didn’t do enough to help because their forecasts were too often wrong, according to a Bank of England report out today. And even though the Bank was consistently worse at [...]
Rivals set to gain as Comet nears collapse November 1, 2012 THE FUTURE of Comet is hanging by a thread after the troubled retailer called in administrators yesterday, sending its website crashing and shares in rival electricals retailers soaring. OpCapita, the private equity firm which acquired Comet for £2 less than a year ago, confirmed it has filed its intention to appoint administrators with the view [...]
Auditor calls payments to SFO ex-chief irregular November 1, 2012 THE SERIOUS Fraud Office (SFO) made several “irregular” payments to outgoing chief executive Phillippa Williamson, according to the results of an audit into the events surrounding her April departure from the financial crime watchdog. Investigators deemed £422,000 worth of payments benefiting Williamson to be “irregular”, due to a lack of legally required approval from the [...]
World’s freest economies managed to avoid banking crisis November 1, 2012 IT is usually claimed that the financial crisis was caused by excessively free markets. Those of us who disagree – and emphasise governments’s role in distorting markets, including by subsidising risk via the moral hazard caused by insane taxpayer guarantees and by fuelling credit and property bubbles via excessively loose monetary policy – are in [...]
The bank’s reports November 1, 2012 The Stockton Review found the Bank of England needs to make changes to improve inflation and growth forecasting It should hire more staff to improve predictions, and make sure to listen more closely to staff’s ideas The Bank should consider giving more information on forecasts to the public And the Monetary Policy Committee should listen [...]
Regulators ask banks to hold more capital November 1, 2012 GLOBAL regulators yesterday said Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, HSBC and JPMorgan Chase will need to hold the most extra capital of 28 banks considered so large and complex they need an extra buffer to absorb potential losses. The four global banks will be required to hold an extra 2.5 per cent of common equity as a [...]
What the other papers say this Morning November 1, 2012 FINANCIAL TIMES Israel veto ends PotashCorp merger Israel says it will block Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan’s attempt to buy rival fertiliser Israel Chemicals, derailing a $15bn (£9.3bn) deal to create the world’s largest potash producer. The veto is the latest example of growing resource nationalism, in which governments block foreign attempts to buy mining, oil, [...]
Lloyds to pay out another billion on PPI November 1, 2012 LLOYDS recorded another loss in the third quarter, yesterday setting aside another £1bn to cover soaring payment protection insurance (PPI) mis-selling claims. The taxpayer-backed bank recorded a loss of £361m in the three months to September, a solid improvement on the £501m loss in the same period of last year. Underlying profits doubled to £840m [...]
