Allied Irish loss soars to €10.4bn April 12, 2011 Allied Irish Banks’ full-year loss more than quadrupled to €10.4bn (£9.2bn) in 2010 and the lender said on Tuesday it would axe over 2,000 jobs as it seeks to re-invent itself as a locally-focussed bank. A former stock market darling with international ambitions, AIB has been effectively nationalised and saved from collapse by emergency ECB [...]
Record drop in mortgage debt at end of 2010 April 4, 2011 BRITONS are no longer withdrawing equity from their houses to fuel consumer spending, official data suggests. Outstanding mortgage debt plummeted by £7bn in the final three months of last year — a record fall in debt — the Bank of England revealed yesterday. The figure sharply contrasts with levels of mortgage debt prior to the [...]
…As Coventry Building Society eyes loss-making good bank bid March 31, 2011 COVENTRY Building Society is putting together a bid for the loss-making “good bank” Northern Rock, the building society confirmed yesterday. Coventry is a surprise addition to the potential list of acquirers for the nationalised mortgage lender, its branches and its deposits, which includes self-styled challenger banks Virgin Money, Tesco Bank, OneSavings Bank and NBNK Investments [...]
Shock rise in mortgage defaults in 2011 March 31, 2011 MORTGAGE defaults have unexpectedly shot up in the first three months of the year, the Bank of England revealed yesterday. A positive balance of 11.5 per cent of respondents to the Bank’s credit conditions survey reported a rise in defaults on secured loans to households. Worse, even more – a positive balance of 14.3 per [...]
House prices turn upwards in London yet continue to slump in rest of the UK March 30, 2011 LONDON is the first UK region to register a rise in house prices for eight months, the Hometrack monthly national housing survey announced today. While prices across the UK fell by 0.1 per cent in March, in the capital they rose by 0.2 per cent. The upturn was driven by a 25 per cent increase [...]
Northern Rock to axe 680 jobs March 28, 2011 STATE-OWNED bank Northern Rock is to cut up to 680 jobs this year as it streamlines to cut costs before a return to the private sector. Newcastle-based Northern Rock said yesterday cost management was a key focus as it seeks to return to profit. The bank said economic and trading conditions were challenging for lenders [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING March 24, 2011 FINANCIAL TIMES BARCLAYS AT CENTRE OF LIBOR INQUIRY Barclays is emerging as a key focus of the US and UK regulatory probe into alleged rigging of benchmark interbank lending rates that are the reference point for $350,000bn in financial products, people familiar with the investigation said. Investigators are probing whether communications between the bank’s traders [...]
Lloyds beats lending targets March 23, 2011 Part-nationalised bank Lloyds Banking Group has met its targets for lending to businesses and for mortgages, it has announced. The high street lender extended £11.7bn in lending to small and mid-sized businesses and £37bn to larger companies in the year to February 2011, beating its annual target by £4.7bn. It also provided £23.5bn in gross [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING March 20, 2011 FINANCIAL TIMES RIO PLANS RUSSIAN DIAMOND PUSH AS IT EYES ALROSA TIE-UP Rio Tinto is planning a push into Russian diamond mining, eyeing a tie-up with Alrosa, the state-owned miner, as the global industry looks ahead to rising demand from China amid tight supply constraints. The company declined to comment on its intentions or on [...]
Housing market “stuck in a rut” March 18, 2011 UK mortgage lending remained unchanged last month as the housing market is “stuck in a rut”, according to lenders. February’s gross lending figure of an estimated £9.5bn was almost identical to January’s £9.475 bn, according to new data published by the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML). “This is going to be a challenging year for [...]