Exclusive: Meet the former UBS and JPMorgan heavyweights shaking up private banking May 28, 2021 As the economy is slowly switching into recovery gear, activity in the City and beyond is starting to pick up again. That is also the case for Vestrata, a relatively new fintech player that is taking the wealth management and private banking space by storm by bring machine learning and automated risk metrics into the [...]
US shoppers behind Klarna’s recent platform transaction boom May 28, 2021 Swedish ‘buy now, pay later’ company Klarna has reported a jump in transactions using its platform in the January to March quarter, helped mainly by growth in the United States. Klarna’s gross merchandise volume (GMV) – the value of transactions made using its payment platform – nearly doubled to $18.9bn in the first quarter from $9.9bn a [...]
Brexit: ECB to crack down on ‘desk mapping’ in London to drive more bankers and capital to the EU May 27, 2021 The European Central Bank is ramping up efforts to push more management and capital out of the City and Canary Wharf, into the EU. The central banking authority plans to scrutinise and crack down on so-called ‘desk mapping’ – or ‘back-to-back booking’ – to determine whether banks’ key staff, capital and book trades used by [...]
Klarna rival Laybuy turns its attention to the UK’s buy now pay later market May 27, 2021 The buy now pay later market has exploded in recent years and now a New Zealand company is trying to make its mark in the UK. Laybuy was set up by Gary Rohloff, his wife and his two sons in 2018 and launched in the UK in early 2019. The likes of Klarna and Clearpay [...]
Exclusive: Three-quarters of London firms set for office return by September May 26, 2021 Almost three-quarters of London businesses are planning a return to the office by September, a new survey by Addison Lee has revealed. Of the 142 firms asked by the taxi firm, 74 per cent said that they would be making a return to their workplace over the coming months. And more than half of these [...]
As accounting firms prep for busy period, non-Big Four players spot new opportunities May 26, 2021 The majority of 2020 was a slow year for the UK’s deals market, with mergers and acquisitions depressed by the Coronavirus pandemic and its subsequent lockdown restrictions. This trend, however, now seems to be in reverse with a number a big deal in the private sector, including Virgin Media and O2’s £31bn mega merger, and [...]
Home Office loses immigration data case against 3.6m EU citizens in UK May 26, 2021 Campaigners have won a Court of Appeal challenge over an “unlawful” exemption to data protection rules in immigration cases. The Open Rights Group and the3million said the “immigration exemption” introduced in the Data Protection Act (DPA), which came into force in May 2018, denies people access to their personal records in immigration cases. The exemption [...]
Airbnb boss banks on long-term shift to remote working May 26, 2021 Airbnb is “not just a travel company anymore”, boss Brian Chesky has said, as he threw his weight behind a long-term shift to home working. The rental booking chief has unveiled a string of changes to the platform aimed at capitalising on new travel habits in the post-pandemic age. Chesky said Covid-19 had sparked the [...]
Broadgate developer British Land posts annual loss as pandemic wipes £2bn off portfolio May 26, 2021 British Land posted its third consecutive annual loss as empty shops and offices squeezed the valuation of its portfolio. The commercial landlord said the value of its portfolio fell 10.8 per cent from £11.1bn to £9.1bn in the year ended 31 March. It reported a pre-tax loss of £1.08bn compared with a loss of £1.11bn [...]
St James’s Place enjoys strong inflows as client confidence improves May 26, 2021 Money manager St James’s Place said inflows this year had surged as government spending and the vaccine rollout drove positive investor sentiment. The FTSE firm said gross inflows for the five months to the end of May 2021 are likely to be around 23 per cent higher than the same period last year. It comes [...]