Sainsbury’s Bank outage: Customers locked out of online banking June 18, 2019 A Sainsbury’s Bank outage spurred customers to take to Twitter today to complain they could not access their accounts online. Read more: The UK banks with the most IT outages Neither the supermarket’s new app nor online banking service wereworking for customers, with Down Detector reporting dozens of complaints this morning. An outage map showed [...]
Facebook launches cryptocurrency with backing of Uber, Visa and Spotify June 18, 2019 Facebook has today published the white paper for its widely anticipated cryptocurrency initiative, with the founding support of several major businesses across multiple sectors. Named libra after the Roman unit of measure once used to mint coins, the cryptocurrency will be managed by an independent eponymous association consisting of 28 initial founding companies. Alongside Facebook [...]
Stiglitz’s 2020 vision: Left-wing economist makes a pitch for the soul of the Democrats June 17, 2019 Who will take on Donald Trump in next year’s battle for the White House? At the time of writing, an absurdly long list of Democratic hopefuls is dominated by Joe Biden, the septuagenarian former vice president who currently enjoys a huge lead in the opinion polls. Read more: President Trump endorses Boris Johnson as next PM [...]
Deutsche Bank to create €50bn bad bank in radical overhaul June 17, 2019 Deutsche Bank has developed plans to create a ‘bad bank’ to hold up to €50bn (£44.6bn) of assets as part of a major overhaul of its trading operations. The bad bank, known internally as the non-core asset unit, would house or sell assets valued at up to €50bn after adjusting to risk – mainly made [...]
RBS shares jump after Saudi bank merger boosts capital June 17, 2019 Royal Bank of Scotland shares have jumped this morning after the bank said a merger between two Saudi banks would boost its capital and reduce its risk weighted assets by £4.7bn. Saudi Arabia’s Alawwal Bank and rival Saudi British Bank (SABB) completed a merger yesterday, creating the third-biggest lender in the kingdom. Read more: Five [...]
Why the Square Mile must break its silence on China June 17, 2019 If timing is everything, London’s stock exchange tie-up with China has been a disaster from the start. It is now four years since the plan was first revealed under the Sino-philic leadership of David Cameron and his chancellor George Osborne. Read more: London-Shanghai Stock Connect finally launches Yet the summer of 2015 also brought a [...]
Total paid out for mis-sold PPI more than £35bn as deadline for claims approaches June 17, 2019 The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has today warned consumers the deadline for complaints about mis-sold payment protection insurance (PPI) is in two months. According to figures released today, the FCA has had more than 3.9m users access the PPI website and 44,000 calls to their contact centre. The FCA has enlisted the help of celebrities [...]
Credit Suisse prepares to sue HMRC over tax on bonuses June 16, 2019 Lawyers representing Credit Suisse are preparing for a battle to reclaim more than £200m from the taxman over bankers’ bonuses. The bank was forced to pay a 50 per cent tax on bonuses above £25,000 in 2010. However, it is now looking to claim back at least £239m, claiming the temporary tax unfairly affected its [...]
Five fintech firms scoop combined £25m from RBS competition fund June 14, 2019 Five fintech firms have been awarded a combined £25m from an RBS competition fund designed to boost business banking competition. Codat, Fluidly, Form3, Funding Options and Swoop Finance were all given £5m in Pool D of the £775m fund, where the focus shifted to the commercialisation of fintech. Read more: Metro, Starling and Clearbank win [...]
Is gender equality top of your agenda? June 14, 2019 Professional women often attend networking events as a way to meet like-minded female professionals. These forums are a great platform to exchange advice, not just on how to survive in the workplace, but how to change it for the better. But they also serve as a sobering reminder that there is still a lot that [...]
