So Sir Richard Branson may finally be about to get his hands on Northern Rock. It has been a long time coming. The bearded entrepreneur - or at least the people he has running his financial services arm - has had to wait four years to get this close again... more
Profits at Santander UK, which bought Alliance & Leicester and much of Bradford & Bingley during the financial crisis, fell 3% in the past three months as it was forced to hold an extra £30 billion of liquid assets to meet tougher regulation... more
Comment: The Financial Services Authority’s devastating report into how badly our big five banks handle their customers should come as no great surprise... more
Santander UK said its profits soared by more than 30% last year as it carved out a bigger share of the mortgage and current-account markets in this country... more
Abbey, the Spanish-owned bank which swallowed up Alliance & Leicester and parts of Bradford & Bingley, saw its profits jump more than 30% in the first six months of the year... more
Abbey surprised the banking industry by reporting a significant decline in the amount it put aside for bad debts in the first three months of the year ... more
Santander, the Spanish bank that owns Abbey, Alliance & Leicester and the branch network of Bradford & Bingley, was forced by a Madrid watchdog to rush out its 2008 profit figure... more
Regulation: The Financial Services Authority has imposed a record number of fines this year, with mortgage fraud high on the list of offences targeted... more
Bradford & Bingley shares fell to an all-time low as the bank revealed it has taken another
£133.8 million hit on its subprime and credit crunch-related investments... more
Banking: Fears were growing for the independent future of Bradford & Bingley as it appeared unlikely that there would be an immediate rescue bid for the £400million buy-to-let lender... more
Richard Pym, who has been parachuted in as the chief executive of troubled bank Bradford & Bingley, will be paid a guaranteed £2.25 million for the next 10 months' work... more
The instinctive reaction of many people on hearing of falling bank profits will be to cheer. Overpaid so-and-sos, they've had it far too easy for too long, ripping us off, closing branches, blah blah... more
When Yell was floated by its private-equity backers not all that long ago, it was fashionable for companies to have as much debt on their balance sheet as they could possibly support because that was the way to maximise the returns to shareholders. ... more
Shareholders were licking their lips over a raft of possible takeover action as actual and rumoured deals totalling almost £12 billion hit dealers' screens... more
Britain's biggest mortgage lenders were accused of cheating borrowers today after two raised their mortgage rates despite an expected Bank of England cut... more
It all used to be so simple. The Bank of England's monetary policy committee set its interest rate, and all the others fell into line. A fortnight ago, the MPC duly pulled the rate-cut lever, and signalled easier credit... more
Afternoon:
8°c
