City Moves for 31 March 2016 | Who’s switching jobs March 31, 2016 Bank of Ireland Corporate Banking Bank of Ireland Corporate Banking has appointed Kelvin Aston as head of its industrial manufacturing business, based in the bank’s London head office. Kelvin has been an executive director involved in the industrial sector for the past 20 years and has over 35 years’ experience within banking, initially at Barclays [...]
Five reasons to think twice before investing in buy-to-let March 31, 2016 You hear it all the time. A relative or a friend has just inherited some money. They want to make it work for them. So they make what seems like an ironclad financial decision: they invest in buy-to-let. Why is this so common? After all, property ownership is a relatively recent trend. Well, rental properties [...]
New Barclays/Opinium report finds millennials are most worried about being shown up by tech-savvy younger colleagues March 31, 2016 One in three workers between the ages of 18 and 34 are worried about being shown up by even younger colleagues, according to a new report out today from Barclays on digital skills. According to the report, including surveys conducted by Opinium,18-34 year-olds are the age group that is most worried about whether they are [...]
Complaints to financial services firms dropped in second half of 2015 March 30, 2016 People were much happier with their financial products in the latter half of last year, or, at the very least, they were quieter about any problems they had. The number of complaints to financial services firms inched down in the last six months of 2015, mainly driven by a drop in grievances over savings accounts, figures [...]
Bank of England stress tests: Berenberg warns Lloyds Banking Group could be hit hard by 2016 stress tests while Standard Chartered and HSBC could fare better than in recent years March 30, 2016 Lloyds Banking Group is "particularly vulnerable to larger stress test losses" in 2016 compared to Britain's other big banks, analysts at Berenberg have warned. The Bank published its plans yesterday for this year’s stress test of Britain’s biggest banks, saying it would test to see how lenders would fare in a scenario where global growth falls 1.9 [...]
Hornby’s share price soars as Barclays grants lifeline on banking covenants March 30, 2016 Hornby's share price soared more than 15 per cent this morning, after the troubled toymaker was granted a last-minute lifeline on its banking covenants. The firm behind Thomas the Tank Engine warned back in February that it was on course to breach its covenants, alongside yet another profit warning. Chief executive Richard Ames was given the heave-ho [...]
City Moves for 30 March 2016 | Who’s switching jobs March 30, 2016 RateSetter Marketplace lender RateSetter has made two senior appointments in credit and risk. Jim Gunner has joined the board as a non-executive director and chair of the risk committee. Nigel Wilkinson has joined as head of commercial credit. Both executives are ex-HSBC. Jim has spent his career in banking, most of it specialising in risk [...]
Market close: FTSE holds steady, but Glencore leads the commodities sector down March 29, 2016 The FTSE 100 clocked a so-so first day back in the office after Easter, remaining unchanged at 6,105. However, there was more than just leftover Easter eggs for traders to sink their teeth into. Commodities giants were left bruised after a note from Barclays warned that the sector could be in for a fresh rout. [...]
Bank of England sets out UK bank stress test scenario and reveals plans to raise the countercyclical buffer rate for British banks in 2017 March 29, 2016 British banks, building societies and investment firms will need to build up their cash piles under new rules revealed today by the Bank of England. In a statement today, the Bank’s Financial Policy Committee (FPC) said that even though British banks have improved their “resilience” in spite of global and domestic headwinds, investors expect weaker [...]
Cyber security: Why the EU General Data Protection Regulations will be game changing for unreported cybercrime March 29, 2016 A report by the Institute of Directors (IoD) and Barclays recently highlighted that one quarter of organisations had suffered a breach in the last twelve months, although only 28 per cent had reported it to the authorities. It is believed that the actual numbers of attacks could be higher. The fact is that there are still a large number [...]