Eyesore or beauty? The 14 postwar office blocks listed by English Heritage January 28, 2015 Whether you're a fan or take an altogether more "Prince Charles" attitude to post-war architecture, office buildings provide some of the finest examples of it. And turns out English Heritage thinks it's worth preserving: the organisation has listed 14 of the UK's best-loved (or most-hated) post-war offices. According to English Heritage, the buildings – which [...]
NatWest website crash: Millions of customers affected as bank hit by another online systems failure January 7, 2015 Millions of NatWest customers were unable to make payments through the bank’s website yesterday, as the system crashed for more than four hours. The failure is the latest in a series for the RBS and NatWest group, which is engaged in an expensive struggle with outdated IT systems. A key cause of this problem is [...]
Who made the FCA’s 2014 naughty list: Which institutions received the biggest fines last year? January 6, 2015 2014 was a busy year for the UK’s financial regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), which brought in a record £1,471,431,800 in fines – more than twice the previous record year. However, £1.1 billion of the FCA’s naughty list was made up by just five banks, and these record fines have sparked fears of conduct [...]
City Moves for 05 December 2014 | Who’s switching jobs December 4, 2014 Three Crowns The global arbitration law firm has appointed Carmen Martinez Lopez as a partner in its London office. She joins from Covington & Burling, where she was an arbitration partner. Martinez Lopez has particular expertise in the Latin American and Spanish language markets. Armstrong Investment Managers Christopher Sullivan has been appointed director and head [...]
Bank of England fines RBS over payments crash November 20, 2014 NEGLECTED IT systems could put the safety and soundness of RBS at risk, the Bank of England warned yesterday as it teamed up with the City watchdog to fine the bank £56m. The regulators were investigating a serious payments system crash, which locked millions of customers out of their accounts in mid-2012. It is a [...]
RBS slapped with higher-than-expected £56m fine for 2012 IT glitch November 20, 2014 The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has agreed a £56m settlement with financial regulators for an IT system failure in June 2012 – £6m more than the £50m penalty analysts had expected. The glitch, which began during a software upgrade to the bank's payment processing system, left over six million of its customers unable [...]
City Moves for 12 November 2014 | Who’s switching jobs November 11, 2014 Kames Capital Craig Bonthron has been appointed investment manager in the investment management firm’s global equity team. He joins from Scottish Widows Investment Partnership, where he was an investment director and joint manager of the Swip Global Sustainability Equity and Global Islamic Equity funds. Herbert Smith Freehills James Palmer has been appointed senior partner and [...]
Bank of England offers lender of last resort access to non-banks for first time in over a century November 5, 2014 The Bank of England (BoE) made an unprecedented move yesterday as it allowed certain non-bank organisations to access its account facilities – expanding its so called lender-of-last-resort access. For at least a century, only commercial banks and building societies had the privilege of keeping accounts with the BoE. Commercial banks such as Halifax and NatWest can [...]
Entrepreneur Luke Johnson reveals he has a secret stalker November 3, 2014 Risk Capital Partners chairman and entrepreneur Luke Johnson looks to be paying the price of fame – the private equity star has got himself an obsessive fan. “I appear to have a stalker. She attends many of my speaking engagements and then comes up to me at the end…and says ‘I want you,’” he writes [...]
Lloyds branch closures are just the start: The UK is dramatically over-banked October 28, 2014 IT MIGHT be an uncomfortable truth for many to hear, but the UK is dramatically over-banked for the digital age. There are a little less than 10,000 bank branches across the UK, far fewer than the approximately 38,000 in France, for example. But for the UK, this is still too many. Lloyds Bank seems to [...]