Nationwide seizes market share February 20, 2014 THE NATIONWIDE is grabbing more current account and mortgage customers from the big four banks, the building society revealed yesterday. The growth pushed up profits as the lender’s interest margins improved. Nationwide made £21.6bn of mortgage loans in the nine months to December, up 34 per cent on the year. The growth is faster than that in [...]
What you need to know before the US open February 20, 2014 US stock index futures suggest markets will open lower, as investors look again towards ongoing emerging market turmoil. The continuing and severe violence in Ukraine at the moment has seen the country’s hryvnia plummet to five-year lows, and state debt insurance rising to 2009 highs. Weaker growth from China – the Markit/HSBC purchasing managers’ index [...]
January mortgage approvals up over a third from a year ago February 20, 2014 More fuel to stoke house price fear fires this morning, with added evidence that market activity started 2014 very much on the front foot. Mortgage approvals hit their highest level in six years in the final quarter of 2013, averaging 70,000. And in January, they were up 33 per cent year-on-year. According to figures from [...]
London’s house prices soar 12pc February 18, 2014 HOUSE prices in the capital have pulled further away from those in the rest of the country, official figures showed yesterday. London’s prices jumped by 12.3 per cent in the 12 months to December, more than double the 5.5 per cent rise in the UK as a whole, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said. The increase [...]
UK inflation falls to 1.9pc in January February 18, 2014 UK inflation figures have shown further signs of improvement in the recovery, falling below the Bank of England’s inflation target for the first time since November 2009. Measured by the consumer price index (CPI), prices rose by 1.9 per cent in January, below the two per cent expected. Month-on-month, CPI dropped 0.6 per cent. According [...]
Stamp duty is feeding the growing bubble in London’s house prices February 16, 2014 SUPPORTERS of financial transaction taxes (FTT), often known as Robin Hood taxes, claim that they can make markets safer. But a look at London’s frothy housing market makes this argument difficult to sustain. FTTs remove liquidity from markets, making bubbles more likely to form. And it looks like London house prices are booming thanks to [...]
City & Gild: You can’t handle the truth! February 14, 2014 I find a useful shorthand definition for ‘brand’ is the combination of product and reputation – where reputation is past performance and future promise. Which, if you read the press in any given day, should be the cause of sleepless nights for CEOs around the world. Because, in this day and age of social media, [...]
Housing boom as deals near pre-crisis high February 13, 2014 HOUSE sale volumes hit their highest level in seven years in January, and are now just four per cent below the average seen in the boom years of 2000 to 2007, according to figures out today from LSL Property Services. Last month 73,000 properties changed hands, rocketing up 67 per cent compared with last January. [...]
Lending to first-time buyers rocketed 37pc at end of 2013 February 12, 2014 Better economic conditions and Help to Buy prompted more and more Brits to take steps to become home owners at the end of 2013, according to new data from the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML). Lending to first-time buyers jumped 37 per cent in December from a year earlier. Paul Smee, CML director general, said [...]
Barclays hikes bonuses to hold onto top staff February 11, 2014 BARCLAYS has been forced to increase bonuses in a bid to attract the best staff in the US and Asia, where competition is particularly fierce, the bank’s boss said yesterday. The bonus pool increased by 10 per cent to £2.38bn, even as profits for 2013 fell 32 per cent to £5.2bn. Chief executive Antony Jenkins [...]