TSB opens doors as bank prepares Lloyds spin off September 8, 2013 THE NEW TSB Bank will open its doors to customers this morning, as the spin-off from Lloyds Banking Group unveils its rebranded high-street sites. When it is fully sold off from Lloyds, the 632 branches will represent a new competitor on the high street and has pledged to focus on local, traditional retail banking. Its [...]
Barclays to sell retail banking arm in the UAE September 3, 2013 BARCLAYS’ review of retail operations in Dubai has found they do not generate sufficient returns to remain part of the group and so will be sold. The lender reviewed all of its business units earlier this year to see how they fit into its group, and repeated the process after the Bank of England said [...]
Nationwide and Lloyds head up jump in lending September 2, 2013 LENDING increased in the second quarter for the first time since the Bank of England launched its cheap funding scheme a year ago, official figures showed yesterday. The Funding for Lending Scheme (FLS) gives cheap funding to banks on the basis they then lend it on to businesses and households. If their net lending falls, [...]
Why UK recovery could rescue the great British banking sector sell-off September 2, 2013 ROLL up, roll up. Britain’s banks are up for sale. This month and next, the Lloyds privatisation will compete for attention with Barclays’s £5.8bn rights issue. Then there’s the initial public offering triplets: Williams & Glyn, Virgin Money and TSB – all set to hit the market with aplomb. And that’s before RBS has turned [...]
Demand for houses rises as Help to Buy takes flak September 1, 2013 DEMAND for housing continued to rise through August, as warnings over the sustainability of chancellor George Osborne’s Help to Buy scheme continued to roll in. According to Hometrack data out today, demand continued to rise last month, with 1.1 per cent more buyers registering with agents, and a 0.4 per cent hike in prices from [...]
Carney tears up King’s rulebook August 28, 2013 BANK lending is in line for a £90bn boost after Mark Carney yesterday agreed to let the safest institutions divert resources away from regulatory liquidity buffers and into business and household credit. It comes after business secretary Vince Cable called the Bank of England the “capital Taliban,” claiming regulators’ tough capital requirements were hitting [...]
Governor stands firm on plan for UK interest rates August 28, 2013 INTEREST rates could stay at rock bottom even after unemployment falls below seven per cent, Bank of England governor Mark Carney said yesterday. In a bid to convince sceptical markets he really is serious about keeping rates down for the next three years, Carney said he would look for a wide range of evidence that [...]
Lenders fear new housing bubble most August 27, 2013 NEARLY two thirds of lenders suggest that an artificial boom in house prices is the biggest threat to George Osborne’s Help to Buy scheme. Both brokers and lenders think that a price bubble is most likely to jeopardise the policy, with 59 per cent and 60 per cent respectively citing it as one of the [...]
Regional gulf as house lending hits 2008 level August 20, 2013 MORTGAGE lending in July leapt back to levels last seen five years ago, but some parts of the country are still yet to see any boost from the budding recovery to the housing market. According to staggering figures released by the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) yesterday, gross mortgage lending rose to £16.6bn in July, [...]
Record bad loans still hitting Spain’s banks August 19, 2013 THE BANK of Spain suggested yesterday that bad loans are still haunting the country’s financial system, with a record 11.6 per cent of lending going to people categorised as doubtful debtors. According to the central bank’s balance sheet, which calculates total lending by Spanish credit institutions, in June €176.42bn (£150.59bn) was extended to customers who [...]