US banking failures top 120 for the year November 8, 2009 United Commercial Bank, a big San Francisco bank with branches in China, was closed by state regulators this weekend and its operations were acquired by East West Bancorp, also active in both nations. East West said the transaction made it the second-largest independent bank in California. Based in Pasadena, East West has 137 US branches, [...]
QE has worked it’s time to wind it down November 5, 2009 IT is nonsense to believe that quantitative easing has had no effect on the economy. It has prevented a collapse in the money supply, which would have triggered a collapse in output. It has also led to a surge in asset prices and started to fuel new bubbles in Britain and abroad, which is why [...]
Northern Rock unveils surge in mortgage loans November 4, 2009 NORTHERN Rock saw improved trading in the third quarter, with encouraging trends on bad loans, and forecast a “significant improvement” in the second half of the year. But the state-owned lender, which is being split into two in readiness for a sale, warned that conditions in the mortgage and housing markets remained subdued. “House price [...]
GMAC posts third-quarter loss on its mortgage loans after housing crash November 4, 2009 GMAC Financial Services, a US lender that has received $12.5bn ($7.54bn) in government assistance, posted a third straight quarterly loss yesterday as its mortgage business continues to reel from the housing market collapse. The third-quarter net loss for Detroit-based GMAC was $767m, compared with a loss of $2.5bn a year earlier. GMAC’s auto finance unit [...]
Wimpey set to hike house prices in 2010 November 4, 2009 HOUSEBUILDER Taylor Wimpey is set to hike its house prices next year after yesterday reporting it had sold all the homes it targeted for 2009. The group said the average selling price for private homes has already jumped nine per cent higher in the 12 weeks to 4 November than the £177,670 it reported in [...]
UBS unveils another loss amid reshape November 3, 2009 SWISS bank UBS has reported a third quarter loss of SFr564.4m (£337m) after being hit by a hike in accounting charges. The result means the bank has now suffered four successive quarters of losses as it restructures in the face of the credit crunch. UBS, Switzerland’s largest bank, has been particularly badly hit by the [...]
House price recovery continues but will soon begin to slow, says Halifax November 3, 2009 BRITISH house prices rose 1.2 per cent in October, leaving the annual decline at its smallest in one-and-a-half years as a lack of supply and higher demand buoyed prices, mortgage lender Halifax said yesterday. House prices were 1.5 per cent down in October compared with a year ago, the smallest annual fall since March 2008. [...]
TIMELINE: HOW BRITAIN’S BANKING SECTOR WENT SOUR November 3, 2009 21 February, 2008Britain passes legislation allowing the government to nationalise Northern Rock after rejecting two private bids. Northern Rock is nationalised months after the Bank of England stepped in to provide support. 21 AprilThe BoE unveils the Special Liquidity Scheme to swap banks' risky mortgage assets for at least £50bn of government debt. 18 SeptemberLloyds [...]
Northern Rock break-up is good for competition November 1, 2009 Leaving the debate over who should be the first “President of the EU” aside, the EU Commission’s recent decision to allow the break-up of Northern Rock into separate “good” and “bad” banks was a major step forward to restoring healthy competition in the banking sector. Restructuring Northern Rock and selling off its viable parts will [...]
Bank plan could cost 40bn November 1, 2009 THE Government may have to find a further £40bn to fund the continuing restructuring of Lloyds, RBS and Northern Rock, it emerged yesterday. The biggest injection will be into RBS, which might receive as much as £26bn as a result of participating in the government’s toxic insurance scheme. Lloyds Banking Group will need up to [...]