One country gets it on bank reforms June 27, 2011 BELIEVE IT or not but Denmark has emerged as Europe’s pioneering financial reformer. We need to learn from it. Fjordbank Mors, a small lender, has just been allowed to go bust; taxpayers are not having to shell out a penny and the world hasn’t come to an end. Senior bondholders at Fjordbank Mors are taking [...]
RETAIL BANK OF THE YEAR | The Shortlist day seven June 27, 2011 Retail banking in Britain is in the throes of monumental change this year, as the big-name players grapple with the reforms being drawn up by the Independent Commission on Banking. The shifting landscape has also allowed newcomers to gain a foothold in the market, giving our list of top retail banks this year a fresh [...]
House prices drop in June June 27, 2011 House prices in England and Wales have edged lower this month to show their biggest annual fall since October 2009, a monthly survey from property data company Hometrack showed. Average house prices dropped by 0.1 per cent in June, continuing a pattern of modest falls so far this year and taking the year-on-year decline to [...]
Big Chinese lenders see stocks drop on fears of capital requirement tightening June 21, 2011 SHARES of major Chinese lenders China Construction Bank (CCB) and Agricultural Bank of China (AgBank) fell to multi-month lows yesterday, hit by potentially souring loans, an economic slowdown and tighter capital requirements. CCB printed a nine-month low of HK$6.43 (£0.50) in early trading, down 2.7 per cent. AgBank was down 3.8 per cent to a [...]
Calls for more UK housing as prices hold up June 20, 2011 BRITAIN needs more houses to avoid shortages in the near future, a group of economists is expected to announce tonight. Even if net migration levelled out, the UK would still require more housing, the Centre for Economic Performance will state at a lecture in London. “Unfairly perhaps, migrants will nevertheless get a lot of blame,” [...]
JP Morgan loses Lowman June 14, 2011 US banking giant JP Morgan’s mortgage chief David Lowman has left the bank after it overcharged active US military personnel on their home loans. His departure comes just four months after another executive was drafted in to manage the lender’s mortgage unit over him. Lowman, who joined JP Morgan from Citigroup in 2006, had been [...]
Dovish Bank holds rates again June 9, 2011 THE Bank of England is increasingly expected to anchor interest rates at their historic low for the duration of 2011, prompting lenders to slash the interest on fixed rate mortgages. Two-year fixed rate loans dipped to their lowest cost since the beginning of the year yesterday as Bank rate was held at 0.5 per cent [...]
House prices in first rise since January May 31, 2011 House prices in England and Wales rose by 0.8 per cent in April, the first monthly increase since January and the biggest rise since January 2010, data from the official Land Registry showed. However, average residential property prices were still 1.3 per cent lower than a year ago at £163,083 the Land Registry said. House [...]
House prices edge up May 27, 2011 House prices rose slightly faster than expected in May but remained 1.2 per cent below their level a year ago, mortgage lender Nationwide said on Friday. House prices rose 0.3 per cent this month, offsetting the 0.2 per cent fall recorded the previous month, but doing little to alter the picture of a stagnating market. [...]
GE Capital in £3bn sell-off May 25, 2011 GE CAPITAL is selling its A$5bn (£3.2bn) Australia and New Zealand mortgages books to Pepper Homeloans as concerns rise over a softening of the Australian housing market and the rising cost of funds. GE Capital, which shed part of its Australian home loans portfolio in 2008 when global conglomerates were restructuring their lending arms, said [...]