Credit scheme eats away rates on mortgages February 11, 2013 THE HOUSING market switched up a gear as 2013 began, several sets of data have revealed. Credit costs for a range of mortgage types plunged yet again, according to Bank of England data, suggesting that the government and Bank ’s Funding for Lending Scheme (FLS) has driven funds back into the housing market. The average [...]
Charming Carney wins hearts February 7, 2013 GOLDMAN Sachs bankers don’t often get a warm welcome from Labour MPs. Nor do public sector staff earning the best part of £1m. Lauded as the greatest central banker of his generation – and, as it happens, the best looking – Mark Carney was surely in for a hard bump back to earth. “Quarter of [...]
UK house prices propped up by lending scheme February 6, 2013 THE HOUSING market has sprung back to life in recent months, Halifax said yesterday, while citing the UK government’s lending initiative. Prices dipped 0.2 per cent in January when compared to December, the company said. Yet a three-monthly measure of house prices – used to iron out month by month fluctuations – rose at its [...]
House prices edge down in January February 6, 2013 UK house prices inched down 0.2 per cent in January following rises in November and December, according to the latest Halifax house price index. On an annual basis, house values rose by 1.3 per cent, marking the first rise in 27 months, according to the lender. “Market activity has also improved with sales in 2012 [...]
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 [...]