Contactless card payments rise by a third with transaction limit set to increase March 15, 2019 Every two in five card payments are made with contactless technology according to new data. Contactless transactions rose 31 per cent year-on-year in 2018, data from banking trade body UK Finance revealed, demonstrating a growing confidence in paying without use of a Pin. A wider adoption of the technology on public transport and in more [...]
Barclays, Lloyds and Natwest launch business hubs as branch closures hit small firms March 11, 2019 Three of the UK’s largest banks have unveiled plans for joint business hubs amid fears small firms are being hit by branch closures. Natwest, Lloyds Bank and Barclays have announced the pilot, which will see six business banking hubs launched across the country. Read more: Digital bank Monzo in discussion with Post Office over cash [...]
Natwest launches fingerprint payment trial for contactless card purchases March 11, 2019 Natwest will trial fingerprint payment technology to allow customers to make purchases worth more than £30 when using their contactless card. The trial, which will begin in the next few weeks, will allow shoppers to verify payments above the £30 contactless limit using their fingerprint rather than having to enter their Pin number. Read more: [...]
Ranked: The high street banks with the most IT outages March 4, 2019 UK banks are suffering IT outages or security failures at a rate of more than one a day, new figures from the financial watchdog have revealed. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) now requires banks to publish information on IT failures. Read more: Barclays down: Banking app outage hits customers Analysis conducted by Which found there [...]
Metro Bank tops customer service survey as challenger bank grows in popularity February 15, 2019 Metro Bank has topped an industry-wide customer service survey despite battling an accounting error, which has hit shares in recent weeks. The challenger bank knocked First Direct off the top spot in a Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) survey based on whether customers at the UK’s 16 largest current account providers would recommend their bank to friends [...]
RBS cuts bonus pool to £335m after posting successive annual profits February 9, 2019 Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) will hand out a £335m bonus to its staff next week with it set to announce its second successive annual profit since becoming state-owned. The RBS board and UK Government Investments (UKGI) have agreed on the bonus amount. UKGI manages the public’s 62.4 per cent stake in the bank. Payouts [...]
More customers leave TSB than any other bank, data shows January 30, 2019 More customers abandoned TSB in the third quarter of last year than any other bank, according to the latest data, while Nationwide gained the most new accounts. TSB, which suffered two major IT outages in 2018, saw net losses of 16,142, followed by Natwest which lost 12,514 accounts overall. A total of 40, 656 customers moved their [...]
Big brands doing big deals show the UK sports sponsorship industry remains in rude health January 14, 2019 January is typically the time to look forward, to forecast and predict what will happen in the coming year. To understand the state of the UK sponsorship industry, however, it’s more worthwhile to look at what happened in the months leading up to Christmas. Rewind to the week after Black Friday in December and big [...]
RBS invests in digital banking startup to rival Monzo and Starling January 7, 2019 The Royal Bank of Scotland has invested in digital current account aimed at students and young people that has set out to rival challenger banks Monzo and Starling. The £2m investment in fintech startup Loot was made through Natwest’s digital-only retail bank Bo, which is due to launch this year, and takes its total shareholding to 25 per [...]
Sainsbury’s begins search for new banking chief as Peter Griffiths prepares to retire January 3, 2019 Sainsbury’s has begun the search for a new chief executive of its banking division after confirming Peter Griffiths will step down next year. Griffiths, who has been in charge of Sainsbury’s Bank since 2012, will step down in 2020, Sky News first reported. The supermarket chain confirmed it was in the “early stages” of finding [...]