Banks

Service being launched in conjuction with the Bank of Ireland The UK Post Office has announced it will enter the current account market during spring 2013 in a move that is set to make it one of the largest providers of financial services on the high street. The current account, which will be provided by […]

Vince the Cable Guy is much more refined than his American cousin, Larry, but he is certainly no less opinionated.  In fact, he has managed to grab quite a few headlines in the last several days as he flexes his muscle as Britain’s Business Secretary in attempts to correct all that he perceives is wrong […]

Three former directors banned from serving as company directors. A UK parliamentary report has argued that leading bank HBOS was an “accident waiting to happen”. The newly released report by the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards blamed the banks leaders, including Andy Hornby, Lord Stevenson and Sir James Crosby, for the failures that led to the bank’s 2008...

Faced with a persistent, lagging, deflationary economy, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced in January that he expected the Bank of Japan to become much more aggressive in attacking the problem.  The former Governor of the BOJ, Masaaki Shirakawa’s vision was to bring the economy to a 2% inflation “at the earliest possible time.” I say […]

And so we add Cyprus to the list of Eurozone sovereign debt crisis bailouts. We can also add bail-ins of bank deposits (haircuts on uninsured deposits >€100K) and total bank investor wipe-outs to the list of self-help measures imposed by those holding the bailout purse strings. Politicians can shout all they like about Cyprus (often with mixed messages) being a special case and not...

It’s been just less than two weeks since we last reported on the fiasco that is more popularly know as JP Morgan (LSE:JPM) (NYSE:JPM).  We can’t help it if they keep stepping into one muddy mess after another. CNBC and others have reported that the bank is now under investigations by eight different federal agencies, […]

The Bank of England’s Financial Policy Committee reported today that UK banks need an additional £25 billion in aggregate on reserve to guard against what Andrew Bailey called “inadequate provisions for losses on loans.”  The committee wants the extra capital raised by December. There is at least one small catch.  The banks are going to have […]

A day after the Cypriot government reached an agreement with the Eurogroup for the terms of the 10-billion euro bailout package, a new set of directives were given to bank managers today as citizens marched on the streets of Cyprus’ capital, Nicosia, in protest of the bailout terms. In a report presented by BBC’s Paul […]

Amidst a new financial crisis threatening the stability of the Eurozone, central banks trying to keep their currencies in check to boost their local economies, and governments tightening their grips to protect the integrity of the financial markets, one financial instrument in circulation around the world is on the rise and poised to become the […]

Has Cyprus made things worse for the UK listed banks? Or were their shares on such a roll that nothing can stop them. Robert Sutherland Smith worked through his first banking crisis just six years into his City career. That was in 1973. Thirty years later he has produced a report on where the banks […]