New lending scheme fails to boost small businesses January 30, 2013 EFFECTIVE interest rates on new deposits have dived from 3.01 per cent in August, when the Funding for Lending Scheme (FLS) started to provide banks with cheap funds, to just 2.11 per cent in December, the Bank of England revealed. But the cheaper funds have started to divert cash back into the mortgage market, the [...]
Flawed government policy is wiping out struggling savers January 30, 2013 ONE of the government’s daftest policies is its underpinning of bank lending, a nationalisation of credit in all but name. The biggest losers from the funding for lending scheme have been savers. The effective average savings rate for new deposits has collapsed from 2.75 per cent in September to a miserable 2.11 per cent in [...]
UK firms set for busy week of trading reports January 27, 2013 THE UK’s corporate calendar is packed this week as many of Britain’s biggest companies deliver their results before the month’s end. Both AstraZeneca and Royal Dutch Shell are set to give full-year results on Thursday, while British Sky Broadcasting, Haynes Publishing and Rank Group will give interim reports. Trading announcements are also expected that day [...]
JPMorgan to book $700m charge January 9, 2013 JPMorgan Chase will book a $700m (£436m) charge when it releases its fourth-quarter accounts on 16 January, the company said in a regulatory filing last night. It is due to an industry-wide settlement with US regulators over allegations banks wrongly approved millions of foreclosures on US mortgages in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. Under [...]
Mortgage approvals hit 10-month high January 4, 2013 The number of mortgage approvals hit their highest level since last January, data from the Bank of England showed today. Mortgage approvals hit 54,036 in November, the highest in 10 months, up from 53,071 in October. Before the 2008 financial crisis, monthly mortgage approvals ran at around 90,000, but the number of home sales has [...]
House prices edge up, driven by London and the south east December 18, 2012 HOUSE prices increased 1.5 per cent in the year to October with more than half of the growth driven by London and the south east, official figures revealed yesterday. The latest monthly survey by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) shows that prices rose by 0.2 per cent in October compared with the previous month [...]
Interest rates inch down in third month of Funding for Lending November 29, 2012 INTEREST rates on new secured loans edged down in October, the third month since the Funding for Lending Scheme (FLS) began, data revealed yesterday, but rates on unsecured loans rose. The average interest rate on new secured loans edged down from 3.77 per cent to 3.74 per cent last month, the Bank of England said. [...]
Santander spearheads drive to rehabilitate securitisations November 14, 2012 SANTANDER is set to be the first bank to add a new industry stamp of approval to a securitisation, as the sector hopes to improve the image of financial instruments tarnished in the financial crisis. Securitisations see portfolios of loans – in Santander’s case, car loans – sliced up and sold to investors. The failure [...]
JP Morgan can start buybacks post Whale loss November 8, 2012 JP MORGAN Chase & Co revealed yesterday that US regulators have approved a plan for the bank to use its capital to buy back as much as $3bn (£1.87bn) of its stock in the first quarter of 2013. The company also disclosed that it has reached “an agreement in principle” with the Securities and Exchange [...]
UK house prices fall in October November 6, 2012 UK house prices fell 0.7 per cent in October, Halifax said today. On an annual basis, property values fell 1.7 per cent. In the three months to October, prices were 1.2 per cent lower than in the previous quarter, the fifth successive decline, Halifax said. Martin Ellis, housing economist at the lender, today said: “The [...]