US financial giant Citigroup is reported to be looking for buyers for its Egg Internet banking operation which was acquired back in 2007 for over £500 million. The operation, which was originally part of the Prudential Group, has been hit by the difficult trading climate in the UK and posted a loss of £106 million in the six months to June 2009. However, it is the underlying financial strength of Citigroup as a whole which has probably forced the group to enter talks with potential buyers.
The Financial Services Authority (FSA) has today confirmed that the complaints procedure currently in place at the Royal Bank of Scotland is to be investigated. This comes at a time when record complaints have been received by the Financial Ombudsman Service with Lloyds bank and Barclays bank very prominent in the figures. It will be interesting to see the scope of the investigation because at this point in time few details have been released into the public domain.
Mervyn King, the Gov of the Bank of England, has today voiced his concern that previous vocal support for wholesale changes to the UK and international banking arena may well be starting to subside. There is a growing concern that as the worldwide economy picks up, as it has been of late, the need to curry favour with the public by pushing ahead with banking regulation changes could begin to diminish.
The Financial Ombudsman Service has today issued figures relating to complaints received about banks in the UK. In the final six months of 2009 the ombudsman received just over 20,000 complaints regarding Lloyds bank group, split between Lloyds bank and Bank of Scotland. Over the same period the Financial Ombudsman Service revealed that Barclays bank was second in the league table with nearly 11,000 complaints received.
At a time when the UK banking sector, and the building society sector especially, is under pressure, today saw the Leeds building society announce record savings and more than 71,000 new customers over the year. This now takes the building society's membership number to 680,000 with savings now standing at £6.8 billion, an increase of £225 million over the period in question. Profits at the building society also increased by 51% to £31.7 million buoyed by an impressive control of the society's cost base - the cost income ratio is just 36%, the lowest in the sector.
The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) is expected to make an announcement tomorrow regarding the recent setback in the legal battle with UK banks about overdraft charges. While rumours in this...
It has been revealed that the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has today dropped its case against UK banks and the overdraft charges incurred by many UK banking customers. After a long battle with the...
It has been revealed that the UK government has "advised" Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds bank to co-operate fully with the Office of Fair Trading and consumer groups in relation to overdraft...
The UK government is on a collision course with Royal Bank of Scotland directors who have previously suggested they would consider a mass resignation if the authorities meddle in banking affairs....
It has been revealed that many Abbey National customers have been affected by technical problems at the UK bank which have seen inwards and outgoing payments remaining unprocessed over the last 24...