The insurance industry needs to embrace blockchain, starting now January 31, 2018 In March 2017, the expression “financial inclusion” hit its peak popularity on Google. This is excellent news. There are over two billion unbanked individuals in the world today – people with no access to banking services. This is a global problem. In India, 19 per cent of the population – 1.2bn people – is unbanked, [...]
National Assembly for Wales tops Stonewall list of 100 LGBT-inclusive employers with Lloyds Banking Group and Citi on the list January 31, 2018 A number of City firms have made the cut in equality charity Stonewall’s latest ranking of the top 100 LGBT-inclusive employers out today. Citi, Pinsent Masons, Clifford Chance, Lloyds Banking Group and Baker McKenzie were all in the top 10, with legal firms again dominating the overall list. Read more: Lloyds Banking Group named most [...]
Automation is evolution, not a class war January 26, 2018 I suffer the great misfortune of living near a busy Tesco Express store, which, absent of self-service checkouts, often makes the innocuous task of buying eggs feel like a test of one’s self-restraint. While waiting for the two portraits of human inefficiency behind the till to serve 20 shoppers, glancing at my phone, I read [...]
‘Not the City I recognise’: Helena Morrissey launches dinner to rival the condemned Presidents Club fundraiser January 25, 2018 City veteran Dame Helena Morrissey has launched a rival dinner to the widely condemned Presidents Club charity fundraiser, at which a number of female waitresses were found to have been sexually harassed in an investigation earlier this week. Morrissey, head of personal investing at Legal & General Investment Management, has already garnered support from names [...]
Challenger bank Revolut and Thomas Cook have just launched a pay-per-day travel insurance service activated by your phone’s location services January 17, 2018 Another day, another insurtech idea. This time, challenger bank Revolut has launched a pay-per-day travel insurance plan which relies on a mobile phone’s geolocational services. The scheme, which Revolut claims to be the first of its kind, can be turned on and off from a user’s phone. When in use, it will use the phone’s [...]
Markets roundup: Pound sterling hits its highest since the Brexit vote as FTSE 100 smashes records January 12, 2018 The pound partied hard this afternoon following reports of good news for Brexit negotiators – as the FTSE 100 ended the week by breaking another record Sterling began the evening more than one per cent higher against the dollar, while it mustered a 0.2 per cent rise against the euro as reports the Spanish and [...]
Downing Street calls City chiefs in for latest Brexit meeting January 10, 2018 Securing a Brexit transitional deal will be high up the agenda for the chief executives of some of the City’s biggest firms at a high-level roundtable tomorrow afternoon with Theresa May. Around a dozen senior figures from firms including Goldman Sachs, Barclays and HSBC are expected to meet the Prime Minister, along with chancellor Philip [...]
London Stock Exchange wins battle against activist investor Sir Chris Hohn December 19, 2017 The board of the London Stock Exchange (LSE) Group has resoundingly beaten off an attempt by activist investor Sir Chris Hohn to remove its chairman, winning a shareholder vote held today after a bitter public row over the departure of ex-chief executive Xavier Rolet. Some 79 per cent of votes cast by LSE shareholders backed [...]
Hedge funds line up against institutional investors in endgame to London Stock Exchange chairman battle December 17, 2017 The hedge fund manager attempting to oust the chairman of the London Stock Exchange (LSE) has received the backing of a top-five investor ahead of a shareholder vote on Tuesday. US firm Lone Pine Capital will back the resolution of Sir Chris Hohn, manager of The Children’s Investment (TCI) fund, to remove Donald Brydon from [...]
LSE’s chairman bruiser Donald Brydon bruised but unbowed, another corporate Saga and N+1 Singer’s silence December 15, 2017 There are few more obvious boardroom caricatures than that of the trigger-happy chairman, so it hasn’t been difficult to cast Donald Brydon in the role of executive assassin. Next week, the effort to oust him from the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) will reach its damp squib of a denouement. To Sir Christopher Hohn, boss [...]