pounds-and-pence.co.uk (Free subscription) | 28/11/2009
From This is Money: But the cost of mortgages is still high for those without a large deposit. Saffron Building Society last week launched a two-year fixed rate at 5.89% that is available to borrowers with at least a 10% deposit. Cheltenham & Gloucester, part of Lloyds TSB Group, also introduced a two-year tracker [...]
Mabinogogiblog (Free subscription) | 28/11/2009
Dubai is unable to pay back debts to banks, which creates a new hole in the worlds financial markets which may be in excess of $90 billion. Most of this is owed to British banks, HSBC, Standard Chartered, Baclays and Lloyds TSB, who are owed $29,948,000,000 - nearly $30billion. Will taxpayers be expected to pay up again, on the grounds that these banks are too big to fail? Clearly, in view of the huge...
Oldrightie (Free subscription) | 28/11/2009
Bliar in 2006, Jimmy Snotpicker In 2008. "We strongly welcome Emirate investment into the UK, for example Dubai Ports World takeover of P & O. British companies for their part are heavily involved in Dubai’s big projects, like the HSBC, Standard Chartered, Lloyds TSB and Barclays have all committed to the Dubai International Finance Centre ." Tony Bliar, 2006 . "Dubai: British...
newsjiffy (Free subscription) | 27/11/2009
British banks such as Lloyds TSB, Barclays and the Royal Bank of Scotland are lending or providing investment banking services to cluster bomb producers, according to a report released last month by IKV Pax Christi and Netwerk Vlaanderen , viewable at Stop Explosive Investments . Cluster bombs release hundreds of smaller submunitions, which do not always denotate on impact and can remain in the ground...
The Business Insider (Free subscription) | 26/11/2009
It's been well-known for some time that Dubai had found itself in a severe and precarious financial state. In early October, for example, S&P warned that it was nearly out of cash. But yesterday the once high-flying Emirate confirmed that it's reached zero-hour. MarketWatch : Dubai late Wednesday said it would restructure Dubai World and announced a six-month "standstill" on repayments...
Railway Eye (Free subscription) | 26/11/2009
Much excitement from the Chatterati over the 'news' that National Express is to lose its remaining rail franchises. This, for instance, from The Times ... National Express is to be stripped of its remaining rail franchise three years early, leaving the troubled transport company with just its bus business. The Department for Transport (DfT) said today that it was terminating National Express’s...
Arts Alerts (Free subscription) | 25/11/2009
News Alert 25 November 2009 Company: Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS:LSE) Frequency: Immediately November 25, 5:15pm Lloyds investors 'mugged' over HBOS deal Lloyds TSB shareholders were "mugged" when the bank agreed to buy HBOS last year without knowing that the stricken lender was being propped up by a secret £25bn loan, it was claimed on Wednesday. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/02673868-d9cd-11de-ad94-00144feabdc0.html...
SUBROSA (Free subscription) | 25/11/2009
Economists are like politicians, put a group in a room together and they'll all disagree. Edmund Conway reports that City economists Goldman Sachs and Fathom Financial Consulting are entrenched is an important battle regarding the unexpectedly weak GDP figures produced last month. Goldman says 'The GDP figures were hardly worth the paper they were written on'. Meanwhile Fathom, who insisted that the...
The Plashing Vole (Free subscription) | 25/11/2009
The people rose up and protested against the obscene and excessive charges levied by the banks for things like slipping over your withdrawal limit, or a cheque not being cleared (often £30 or more). The Office for Fair Trading supported them. So did the High Court. It seemed like the Establishment was going to side with us for a change. Until today: the banks' appeal to the Supreme Court has...
The Bank Channel (Free subscription) | 25/11/2009
To celebrate my 800th post here on The Bank Channel, I thought I'd recognise those that have inspired me to get there. I'm sure everyone has their favourites, but here are mine - these are the guys and gals who understand CX as well as design, technology, branding, business the best and have a great blog presence. There are many more, but here we go in alpha order: Bankervision - @bankervision James...
The Guardian (Free subscription) | 25/11/2009
Lord Myners says it was 'absolutely vital' that the Bank of England provided loans to RBS and HBOS covertly City minister Lord Myners has defended the emergency loans totalling £61.6bn that were handed to the Royal Bank of Scotland and HBOS at the height of the financial crisis last year, as the political row over the secrecy surrounding them intensified. Myners said this morning that it was...
Longpier (Free subscription) | 24/11/2009
When I roll up to one of Leigh on Sea's most trendy bars, Louis XIV, I'm anxious. It's not the surroundings that I feel uncomfortable with, it's the prospect of meeting a professional photographer. I'm here to meet Jo Curtis - and as part of the feature, I have to take a photograph of her - at night! I'm worried she'll look my technique and burst out in fits of laughter. The amateur shooting the professional...
The Very Fluffy Diary of Millennium Dome, Elephant (Free subscription) | 24/11/2009
Tuesday: Suppose you're running a business and it is time to prepare some accounts. Things are looking a bit TIGHT, so here's a trick: borrow a load of CASH from a friend of yours and give it back after the accounts are done. That way, if suppliers look at your balance sheet, they'll see that you have plenty of money to keep paying your bills and so will carry on giving you credit. There's only ONE...
Barnacle Bill (Free subscription) | 24/11/2009
The revelation of secret loans from the Bank of England to prop up HBOS during the time they were being taken over by Lloyds TSB, urged on very publicly by OGUL & Glove-Puppet, raises the spectre of legal action from former Lloyds TSB shareholders. Whilst Mervyn King, BoE Governor, argues that it was kept secret until now to avoid any further undermining of the UK financial system. It does seem...
Contact Multimedia Blog (Free subscription) | 23/11/2009
This is a Loyds TSB spam email, the first giveaway should be the big list of other people that have recieved the email. This would never happen from a bank as it would be against the data protection act. Now I've had to blur out the list of people, but you can see there are about 25 email addresses there.
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