Regulator faces backlash on expensive new offices April 30, 2012 THE BANK of England is spending millions of pounds extra to house the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) a few hundred yards away in Moorgate, instead of keeping it a short DLR journey away in Canary Wharf, it was announced yesterday. However, financial services groups and MPs denounced the move as “lavish” at a time when [...]
Top pay under fire at Standard Chartered bank April 29, 2012 STANDARD Chartered is heading for a bust-up over how much it pays its top staff, after investor advisory group Pirc advised its members to vote down the bank’s remuneration report. The bank plans to pay out $92.1m (£56.6m) to its top 13 staff, which includes five board members, for last year. Pirc is thought to [...]
UK prepares for pensions battle with EU April 23, 2012 THE TREASURY has written to banks to reassure them that it will go to battle with the EU over new pensions regulation that it says would make saving for retirement much more expensive. In a private letter sent to lenders and seen by City A.M., the Treasury’s financial secretary Mark Hoban expresses “serious concerns” about the way the [...]
Friends defend director at heart of Barclays pay row April 22, 2012 FRIENDS of the senior Barclays director responsible for pay awards were last night suggesting that she is being unfairly singled out for the row that has engulfed the bank. The re-appointment of Alison Carnwath as head of the bank’s remuneration committee is likely to be rejected by up to 15 per cent of shareholders, with [...]
Insurers under fire over cost of policy changes April 15, 2012 INSURERS face a new threat to their profits after Which launched a campaign against the fees charged on car and home policies. The industry, parts of which paid out large sums last year following a string of natural disasters around the world, stands accused of charging “exorbitant fees” for simple changes to policies. Consumer group [...]
Angry shareholders to protest exec pay at BP annual meeting April 11, 2012 OIL giant BP will face down shareholder dissent over its director pay packages today at its annual general meeting in London. BP, whose share price has yet to recover from the effects of the Gulf of Mexico spill in 2010, has already met with big shareholders to discuss concerns over remuneration. But some of them [...]
ABI warns on Barclays pay April 10, 2012 THE ASSOCIATION of British Insurers has voiced concerns about executive pay at Barclays, raising the pressure on the bank over chief executive Bob Diamond’s recent £17m pay award. The ABI, whose members own 20 per cent of the FTSE All-Share index, has issued an “amber top” warning over the pay, one step down from its [...]
PPI sales chaos triggers a spike in complaints March 28, 2012 A SURGE in public anger over payment protection insurance (PPI) has helped push up complaints about financial institutions more than a fifth to 2.26m. Complaints about the controversial method of cover jumped 85 per cent to nearly 980,000 in the second half of last year, according to the Financial Services Authority. The total paid out [...]
ABI warns 200,000 could miss out on flood insurance March 7, 2012 THE ASSOCIATION of British Insurers (ABI) says the government must come to a new agreement soon if it wants to secure a sustainable flood insurance market in the UK. It claims that up to 200,000 property owners will struggle to get affordable insurance when the current agreement ends in June 2013. At the moment insurers [...]
Insurance firms need regulators to pay attention March 4, 2012 PRUDENTIAL’S threat to quit the UK and move its headquarters to Asia isn’t a hollow one. There is a growing feeling in the City that British insurers are getting a raw deal from Solvency II, the new capital requirements that will soon govern the sector. There is wide acknowledgement that the UK regulator, the Financial [...]