Mortgage loan growth hits a new record low February 25, 2013 MORTGAGE lending barely budged in January while businesses continued to pay off their debts instead of borrowing more, despite intense government efforts to push banks to lend more. Meanwhile, bank deposit levels rose sharply despite interest rates plunging over recent months, industry data showed yesterday Mortgage lending increased 0.2 per cent on the year to [...]
Strong start to the new year for Persimmon February 25, 2013 HOUSEBUILDER Persimmon yesterday reported a sharp rise in full-year profits and said its strong performance has continued into 2013, with forward sales reaching £1bn. Britain’s largest housebuilder by market value said underlying profit before tax increased by 52 per cent to £225.1m in the year to 31 December while its operating margin rose 10 per [...]
View from the City – It’s a bad time to sell off RBS stake February 25, 2013 WHILE you are ruminating over the content of today’s City A.M., earnings results from RBS on Thursday and Lloyds Banking Group on Friday will be approaching the top of the financial agenda. Although the “Black Horse”, was first to admit to wholesale miss-selling of payment protection insurance (PPI), it seems that it will be easier [...]
RBS and Lloyds results look set to show losses February 24, 2013 STATE-BACKED banks Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group are both expected to announce full-year results this week, with analysts forecasting both lenders will remain loss-making. Investec believes RBS, which will deliver its 2012 figures on Thursday, will announce an attributable loss of £2.2bn for the final quarter – or a £5.6bn loss for [...]
Mortgage rates fall to new low with state aid February 21, 2013 MORTGAGE interest rates dropped to their lowest level ever in February, new figures showed yesterday, six months after the Bank of England started offering banks cheap funding in an effort to boost lending to the private sector. The average five-year fixed mortgage costs just 4.14 per cent, according to finance research site MoneyFacts. That is [...]
The hawk and the dove give their verdict February 21, 2013 Confusing Bank policy is failing to contain persistently high inflation MONETARY policy in the UK is becoming increasingly confusing. When the Bank of England assumed responsibility for setting interest rates in 1997, it was given a clear objective – keeping inflation on target at a low target level (retail price index, excluding mortgage interest payments [...]
Tax onslaught from Labour and Brussels will destroy jobs February 14, 2013 IF it moves, tax it; if it doesn’t, subsidise it; and above all make sure the tax system is as complicated as possible. That, and a nasty dose of class war and anti-finance prejudice, has become the new modus operandi for many in Britain and Europe. As a result, yesterday was one of the worst [...]
Buy to let loans grow to 12pc of market in 2012 February 14, 2013 THE BUY-TO-LET market enjoyed rapid expansion in 2012, ballooning back up towards its pre-recession peak, according to figures out yesterday. Buy-to let lending exploded 19 per cent between 2011 and last year, from £13.8bn to £16.4bn, the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) said. This boom saw it taking up 11.5 per cent of total gross [...]
Work placements for the unemployed make a lot of sense February 12, 2013 UNEMPLOYMENT remains obscenely high in today’s stagnant Britain, and far too many people – young and old – have been on the dole or on other out of work benefits for far too long. Anything that allows them to break out of their present predicament should be welcome. The government should be able to ask [...]
Jenkins slashes jobs and pay to shore up profit February 12, 2013 BARCLAYS shares soared as the bank announced a major cost-cutting plan yesterday, shutting four business units and shaking up another 32 of its 75 units to streamline the institution and shore up profits in the face of a weak economic outlook. Chief executive Antony Jenkins announced 3,700 job cuts – well above the 2,000 expected [...]