Top of the Bots: Twitter’s users not all they seem as 23 million revealed to be robots August 12, 2014 The concept of Twitter bots is an amusing one. We’re imagining legions of automatons sitting behind their iMacs in a dark room, pressing the tweet button with mechanically superior bot fingers and spamming us with mega lolz. But Twitter bots are a reality (albeit slightly different, it’s just a computer) and yesterday the social [...]
Half of shares in food giant Bakkavor going on sale August 11, 2014 Shareholders in ready meal supplier Bakkavor have hired Barclays to sell down their stakes in the food giant, it emerged yesterday, Almost half of the shares in the firm could be sold as a result. One quarter of the firm is owned by Icelandic lender Arion Banki, which was formed from the wreckage of Kaupthing [...]
New Barclays chair should be female – CNBC Comment August 11, 2014 It’s time for a woman to be the chair of Barclays. And yes, simply because she is a woman, it would make things better. Rona Fairhead, the former Financial Times boss and finance director of parent company Pearson, is rumoured to be on a shortlist to take over from Sir David Walker next year. She [...]
South African central bank rides to the rescue of stricken lender August 10, 2014 TROUBLED South African lender African Bank Investments (Abil) was yesterday chopped up into a good bank and bad bank by authorities in a bid to rescue the stricken lender. The South African Reserve Bank (Sarb), the country’s central bank, placed the lender under creditor protection while it raises more funds. A 940m rand (£560m) capital [...]
Rona Fairhead in running for Barclays chairman job August 10, 2014 Long serving HSBC non-exec director Rona Fairhead could be a frontrunner to take over as Barclays’ chairman, it emerged over the weekend. The former Financial Times chief executive could replace outgoing chairman Sir David Walker, though no formal timetable has been laid out. Sir Howard Davies is also thought to be a candidate. Barclays declined to [...]
Banking brain drain: Four unintended consequences of post-crisis regulation August 10, 2014 Since the financial crisis, governments have made wide-ranging changes to the way financial institutions are regulated. In particular, regulators have focused on the amount and type of capital that banks and other financial institutions must hold, and set new standards as to how they must interact with consumers and markets. This has given rise to [...]
Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley facing dark pool investigations August 8, 2014 Investment banks Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley yesterday admitted that US regulators were investigating their alternative trading systems, known as dark pools. The private exchanges have come under regulatory fire in recent months, with Goldman being fined for failing to give clients the best deal on trades, and Barclays fighting accusations it lied to clients. [...]
No change at the Bank as MPC split speculation mounts August 7, 2014 The Bank of England is still sitting on its hands, but many are speculating that the days of 0.5 per cent interest rates are increasingly numbered. The Bank's monetary policy committee (MPC) again voted not to touch interest rates, but there has been much speculation that a minority of the nine-person committee may have voted for a [...]
Barclays takes battle to PayPal August 6, 2014 BARCLAYS has stepped up its battle with payment services such as PayPal, letting users of its Pingit app make payments to India. Once customers subscribe, they can make payments using a mobile number only, rather than more account details. The British lender has highlighted the threat to traditional banks from digital rivals such as PayPal [...]
Bank of England’s top insurance official quits to join the Prudential August 6, 2014 TOP INSURANCE regulator Julian Adams yesterday quit his job at the Bank of England to join the private sector. The executive director for insurance supervision is joining Prudential as group regulatory director. He takes up the job in early 2015, after a cooling-off period. Adams’ departure comes just two days after Spencer Dale, the Bank’s head of [...]