I recreated all my favourite TV tropes, from crawling through pipes to being two kids in a trenchcoat
Risky loans are back as house market booms September 12, 2013 MORTGAGE lending is up by almost one-third on the year, according to industry data out yesterday, as borrowers gain confidence and the market gathers pace. And the belief that a boom could be underway was backed up again by figures from surveyors group e.surv showing a rise in high loan to value mortgages. In July [...]
Lloyds ordered to give another £240m to help build new TSB September 11, 2013 NEW HIGH street lender TSB was given another boost last night as the Office for Fair Trading (OFT) said its parent Lloyds should give it more financial help to establish a foothold in the market. The decision is believed to remove the final hurdle before the government can go ahead with selling Lloyds Bank, as [...]
First time buyer loans swell by nearly a third September 10, 2013 MORTGAGE lending to first time buyers has jumped upward, rising by 31 per cent to £8bn in the year to June, according to Bank of England figures released yesterday. New government schemes to boost activity in the housing market appear to have had the desired effect in the second quarter, as the Funding for Lending [...]
Gross new lending hits record high as Help to Buy kicks in September 10, 2013 Figures published today by the Bank of England (BoE) and Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) show new high for gross new lending and interest rates on gross new lending for the second quarter, since the start of the series in 2007. Mortgage lenders and administrator statistics show record levels; at 1.6 percentage points higher than [...]
Osborne has defeated Ed Balls – but UK’s economy still fragile September 9, 2013 WITH the economy finally growing much more quickly, it is no surprise that the chancellor chose yesterday to show off about it. He is certainly right to be celebrating having seen off Labour’s Ed Balls, whose strident opposition to modest cuts and claims they would inflict permanent havoc are no longer credible. Osborne is also [...]
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 [...]