BBVA shakes up fintech venture fund, spinning out into independent Propel Ventures, doubling fund and setting up London office February 11, 2016 Spanish bank BBVA, which recently ploughed £45m into UK digital challenger bank Atom, has more than doubled its war chest for investing in fintech startups and will set up shop in London in a shake up of its venture investment strategy. The bank's $100m (£69m) fintech venture fund, which invests in European and US startups, will be upped to $250m [...]
FTSE 100 index closes lower as banks including HSBC, Lloyds, RBS and Barclays fall and miners’ woes continue February 11, 2016 The FTSE 100 index closed sharply lower on Thursday as the selloff in banking and mining shares continued. The UK's blue-chip index fell 2.39 per cent to 5,536 points, led lower by the financial sector with both banks and insurers set to struggle with low interest rates. "Banks have been hit hard and further steep weakness can not [...]
Gold now best-performing commodity this year as investors seek safe haven in wake of market turmoil February 11, 2016 The price of gold has risen to a 10-month high, while the Japanese yen rose by 0.5 per cent to a 14-month high of Y160.74 per pound sterling as investors react to market turmoil. Meanwhile, demand for 10-year treasury bonds in the US has driven prices down to a one-year low of 1.673 per cent. Gold [...]
SocGen leads European banks lower at the close as rout resumes on Deutsche, Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds and RBS share prices and Credit Suisse hits 27 year lows February 11, 2016 Well that didn’t last long. Europe’s bank shares closed down this evening, led by French bank Société Générale after it announced earlier it may struggle to meet its profitability targets this year. The bank, whose share price slumped over 13 per cent in early trading but managed to scale back loses to end the day down just over 12 [...]
Zurich Insurance Group share price plummets after posting s a “disappointing result” for 2015 and earlier Storm Frank warning February 11, 2016 Shares in Zurich Insurance Group dropped this morning after the company posted a "disappointing result" for its full-year ending December 2015. The insurer reported a business operating profit of $2.9bn (£2bn) for the year, down 37 per cent from $4.6bn the year before, and a net income attributable to shareholders of $1.8bn, down 53 per cent from [...]
Why P2P lending is getting ever more robust – and why Adair Turner is wrong about the industry February 11, 2016 Former Financial Services Authority chairman Adair Turner took a potshot at the P2P lending industry yesterday, stating that “the losses which will emerge from peer-to-peer lending over the next five to 10 years will make the bankers look like lending geniuses”. More specifically, he expressed his concern at the credit checking P2P and debt-base crowdfunding platforms [...]
Driverless cars could prevent 95 per cent of road accidents February 11, 2016 Making all cars driverless could prevent 95 per cent of car accidents and add £51bn a year to the UK economy, a new report has claimed. The report, by the Institution of Management Engineers (IME), said 95 per cent of crashes happen due to driver error. "The benefits of this sort of technology are huge," [...]
London weather: Thames Barrier closes for first time this year as spring tides loom just after Storm Imogen brought heavy rainfall and wind to the south of England February 10, 2016 It's official: it's been raining in London. The Environment Agency announced this morning that it has shut the Thames Barrier, a 520m moveable barrier in east London, for the first time this winter. "We are closing the barrier to protect London from the threat of flooding due to the high level of rain last week combined [...]
Flood Re publishes plan explaining how it will lower premiums for home insurance customers in high-risk areas beyond 2039 February 10, 2016 Flood Re has today published a transition plan detailing how it will help home insurance customers in flood-risk areas get a better deal once the scheme expires in 2039. Flood Re, which is due to start operating in April and could benefit up to 350,000 homes, has outlined how it will use the data it [...]
Bank of England’s Andrew Hauser defends financial crisis safety net on the 150th anniversary of the Overend and Gurney panic February 10, 2016 A Bank of England official has defended the safety net it used in response to the financial crisis. Andrew Hauser, executive director of banking, payments and financial resilience, said the Bank’s lender-of-last-resort (LOLR) operations during the 2007 and 2008 financial crises “helped prevent global economic and financial meltdown.” The Bank first lent cash to Northern Rock in [...]