Bank lending up on back of state aid plan December 3, 2012 BANK lending increased in August and September after the funding for lending scheme (FLS) got underway, according to Bank of England figures published yesterday. So far £4.36bn has been drawn down from the facility, with six of the 35 banks that have signed up taking money in the first two months. Overall lending to the [...]
UBS could pay £280m fine for Libor fixing December 3, 2012 UBS could pay $450m (£280m) to regulators following allegations that its employees submitting false figures to the organisation that compiles the Libor rate, according to a report in the New York Times. This summer Barclays paid a similar fine after admitting that it manipulated the benchmark interest rate, resulting in the resignation of its chief [...]
Interest rates inch down in third month of Funding for Lending November 29, 2012 INTEREST rates on new secured loans edged down in October, the third month since the Funding for Lending Scheme (FLS) began, data revealed yesterday, but rates on unsecured loans rose. The average interest rate on new secured loans edged down from 3.77 per cent to 3.74 per cent last month, the Bank of England said. [...]
Mark Carney’s Canadian legacy has still not weathered the test of time November 27, 2012 MARK Carney, the Bank of England’s new governor, will leave his current position as governor of the Bank of Canada with a sterling reputation. The widespread acclaim he has attracted is based on his Bank’s deft handling of the beginning of the financial crisis, and his recent appointment as head of the G20’s Financial Stability [...]
Highest number of first time buyers in London since 2009 November 26, 2012 TEN thousand first-time buyers took out a mortgage in London during the third quarter of the year, according to Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) data out yesterday. The figure was the highest on the CML’s records since the fourth quarter of 2009, yet its research also revealed significant barriers to getting on the property ladder [...]
Rapid responses November 25, 2012 House of cards [Re:Why Britain’s housing market has escaped the disasters of the 1990s, Friday] Although Ruth Lea’s article is interesting, I’m concerned that a similar housing disaster to that of 1990s has simply been postponed by our unnaturally low interest rates. The problem that Britain’s housing market faces is that a huge number of [...]
High childcare costs needn’t give you a case of baby blues November 25, 2012 RISING childcare costs are deterring British mothers from returning to work. According to a 2011 Eurostat survey, 48.8 per cent of women with three or more children are in employment in the UK, compared with 71.3 per cent in the Netherlands and 68.2 in Finland. But family formation patterns have changed over the past few [...]
Why Britain’s housing market has escaped the disasters of the 1990s November 22, 2012 DESPITE economic woes, the British housing market is holding up reasonably well. According to the Office for National Statistics, house prices in September were 1.7 per cent higher than a year earlier in nominal terms, and only 2.5 per cent down on their 2008 peak. Of course, there are qualifications. Higher prices are mainly confined [...]
Banks are pressing the BBA to consider a trade group merger November 20, 2012 SEVERAL UK banks want their trade association to consider merging with other industry groups as part of a radical re-think of the British Bankers’ Association’s (BBA) structure and finances. The BBA used to be able to charge for the use of Libor data, but the association has lost that multi-million pound revenue stream since the [...]
Paragon profits soar as bigger lenders cut back on buy-to-let November 20, 2012 MORTGAGE firm Paragon increased profits by 22.5 per cent in the last 12 months, according to full-year results published yesterday. The specialist buy-to-let and consumer finance group reported record pre-tax profit of £95.5m, up from £80.8m in the previous year. Paragon benefited from bigger lenders cutting back credit, allowing it to expand. The results allowed [...]