The Finanser’s Week: 25th June – 1st July 2012

We had a fun evening last week at the Financial Services Club with Geraint Anderson, aka Cityboy, who gave us an amusing insight packed full of anecdotes into life in his City trading days. He admits that this was pre-crisis...

 

 
So there are two big stories in the UK media right now – the RBS/NatWest glitch and the Barclays LIBOR fine. There are two others: the PPI scandal that rolls on and on, and the new generation SWAPS scandal which...

 

 
A controversial title I know, and not my own … it’s a conversation I was having with one senior European banker about the crisis we have today. He turned to me and said: “the problem with Europe and many other...

 

The major general news stories of the past week include ... 

MPs demand IT answers from RBS - BBC
The chairman of the Treasury Committee brands the meltdown of RBS's computer system "completely unacceptable" and demands an explanation.

NBNK to close as Lloyds agrees terms with the Co-op - The Telegraph
Lloyds Banking Group has agreed the terms of a deal to sell 632 branches to the Co-op, ending a long-running takeover battle for the "Project Verde" business.

Record fines for Barclays are just the beginning of the Libor scandal - The Telegraph
If money makes the world go around, Libor makes the money go around first. It's at the heart of everything, and dishonestly manipulating Libor is nothing less than manipulating the price of money itself.

Italy in €2bn bail out for world's oldest bank - The Telegraph
Italy has been forced to bail out the world's oldest bank, Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena, after it failed to find private investors to plug a €2bn (£1.6bn) shortfall.

Bank of England governor says FSA must investigate RBS glitch - The Telegraph
Sir Mervyn King has said the Financial Services Authority should launch a "detailed investigation" of the computer problems at Royal Bank of Scotland.

Fred Goodwin: we weren't at fault in RBS failure - The Telegraph
RBS directors, including former chief executive Fred Goodwin, have said they did nothing wrong in the run up to the lender's collapse.

EU banking union plans 'a threat to London' - The Telegraph
New proposals for a "banking union" pose a threat to London as Europe's main financial centre as the EU moves against the European Banking Authority, blaming it for a failure to address the Spanish bank crisis.

RBS boss blames software upgrade - BBC
The boss of RBS tells the BBC that a software change was responsible for the widespread computer problems affecting millions of customers' bank accounts.

Rate swap scandal: FSA review to reveal evidence of serious misselling - The Telegraph
The Financial Services Authority is to reveal it has found evidence of serious mis-selling at some of Britain's largest banks as part of a review of the way lenders pushed small businesses to buy controversial interest rate swaps.

Lloyds set to cut price of Verde branch sale - The Telegraph
Lloyds does not expect to sell the 632 branches it is currently in the process of selling for as much as it had orginally hoped.

 

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