CPP secures £36m lifeline deal July 31, 2013 York-based credit card insurer CPP, which sells card protection on behalf of major lenders such as HSBC, yesterday agreed a new refinancing package which will secure its future. CPP, which was fined £10.5m by the Financial Services Authority last year for “widespread” mis-selling, has secured a £13m credit facility from its lenders, expiring in July [...]
Hamstringing banks with higher capital requirements will not stop the next crisis July 30, 2013 GREAT fallacies periodically grip the British establishment and cause enormous harm to the economy. The last big one was the obsession with joining the European Exchange Rate Mechanism at the end of the 1980s. Now we have the regulative fallacy. The great and the good are in its grip. They identified banks and excessive debt [...]
What the other papers say this morning – 30 July 2013 July 29, 2013 FINANCIAL TIMES US funds return to European banks US money market funds have nearly doubled their allocations to European banks over the past 12 months, in a sign of improving investor sentiment towards the region. In the first half of the year, the 10 biggest US money market funds allocated about 15 per cent of [...]
London Report: UK’s corporate calendar packed in results season July 28, 2013 THE CORPORATE calendar is packed this week, as businesses including ITV, BP, Lloyds, Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland update the market amid a swathe of other results. The week begins with figures from Fidessa Group, Hammerson, InterContinental Hotels Group, Intertek Group, JKX Oil & Gas, Keller Group, Senior, Vernalis, Reckitt Benckiser Group, National Grid, [...]
Lloyd’s insurers face investment woes as Lancashire profits drop July 25, 2013 LLOYD’S of London members seem to be set for substantial drops in their investment income this year, after two insurers said they have been hit by losses in the bond market. Lancashire Holdings, a member of the FTSE 250, yesterday confirmed that its net investment income fell 22.6 per cent for the second quarter of 2013. “Treasury [...]
City Moves for 25 July 2013 | Who’s switching jobs July 24, 2013 bfinance The consultancy has announced the appointment of Roubesh Adaya as a senior associate in its research team. He will be covering research into fixed income asset investments, and joins from BNP Paribas Asset Management. Barclays Vivian Chan has joined the bank as regional head of north Asia in its wealth and investment management division. Chan [...]
Treasury clamps down on bank to bank lending July 17, 2013 RINGFENCED banks will not be allowed to lend to other banks in future, the Treasury announced yesterday, as part of a drive to stop institutions becoming entangled. The consultation on bank reforms sets out which activities will be allowed within the ringfenced bank – the part of the lender including basic retail services, which regulators [...]
Coalition’s tweaks and gimmicks won’t reboot our economy June 23, 2013 SO was that it, then? When it comes to measures affecting our ailing economy at least, the coalition’s programme unveiled by the Queen yesterday can only be described as yet another damp squib. It contained a list of modest tweaks of the kind that a complacent government in the middle of a frenzied boom might [...]
Funding for Lending isn’t working: Why the Bank is missing the point April 29, 2013 IN THE debate about why Britain’s monetary policy is not working, there has been too much focus on whether the Bank of England should buy more government bonds or move to negative interest rates. Both miss the point. The primary reason monetary policy is not working is that the transmission mechanism is broken. There is [...]
IMF warns of easy money timebomb April 14, 2013 PRINTING money for years on end risks long-term damage to the economy and parts of the financial sector, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned yesterday. After so much quantitative easing (QE), it will be very hard for central banks like the Bank of England and the Federal Reserve to even begin reversing the extraordinarily loose [...]