Budget 2021: Bank surcharge slashed but lenders still stung by higher taxes October 27, 2021 UK banks will still be stung by a higher tax rate on their profits even though Chancellor Rishi Sunak confirmed he will slash the bank surcharge. Sunak told the House of Commons today that the bank surcharge will drop to three per cent from eight per cent in 2023. However, the increase in the headline [...]
Santander beats forecasts following strong UK performance October 27, 2021 Spanish bank Santander smashed profit expectations for the third quarter driven by robust lending activity in its mortgage unit. The lender pulled in more than £1.4bn in pre-tax profits in the year to September, up nearly 400 per cent. Over the same period last year, profits were just £299m. A red hot UK housing market, [...]
City banks and financial services firms bet heavily on tech and data analytics October 27, 2021 Banking and financial services firms plan to step up their tech investments in the coming 12 months to improve both front and back-end technology. In fact, nearly three in four financial institutions has made improving the quality of their core technologies a priority, while 65 per cent of financial services players plan to pump more [...]
Centrica boss warns of extra £100 energy costs facing UK households October 26, 2021 UK households will face £100 in extra costs following the collapse of multiple small energy firms, warns Chris O’Shea, chief executive of British Gas owner Centrica. Speaking to a House of Lords committee, O’Shea said, “The current retail market failures will put £100 on the bills of every single home in the UK. The CEO argued that [...]
UBS smashes expectations with best profits for six years October 26, 2021 Swiss investment banking giant UBS registered its best quarterly profit for six years driven by a sharp uptick in trading activity by the world’s ultra wealthy. Net profits came in at $2.3bn in the three months to the end of September, well ahead of analysts’ expectations of $1.5bn. More to follow.
UK banks still stung by largest tax raid even if bank surcharge is slashed October 25, 2021 London will sting banks with the largest tax raid out of all of the world’s leading finance hubs even if the Chancellor slashes the bank surcharge at this week’s budget. UK based banks will still be hit by a 46.5 per cent levy in 2024 even if Chancellor Rishi Sunak cuts the bank surcharge to [...]
HSBC online banking hit by an outage, impacting business customers October 25, 2021 HSBC’s online banking has been down this morning, according to reports, which primarily impacted the bank’s business customers. Service complaints spiked at around 9:30am this morning, according to DownDetecter, with more than 60 per cent of the complaints regarding HSBC’s online banking. The issue had largely been resolved by around 11:30am, with reports of the [...]
Paying off debt is preventing half of all SMEs from investment and growth, Lloyds Bank warns October 25, 2021 More than half of small and medium sized enterprises are held back from investing in itself to grow for the future as funds are taken up by debt repayments. The warning comes from Lloyds Bank, which said this morning that even though the debt repayments are affordable for most SMEs, servicing the debt does prevent [...]
Co-op bank confirms TSB approach October 25, 2021 The Co-op bank has today confirmed it approached Spanish lender Banco de Sabadell over buying fellow bank TSB. The bank said that it sent a letter to Banco de Sabadell but that no discussions are currently taking place between the two banks. More to follow.
HSBC smashes expectations and launches share buyback programme October 25, 2021 HSBC smashed expectations for profit for the third quarter of the year driven by the release of reserves set aside to cope with an expected wave of pandemic-induced defaults. The bank registered a pre-tax profit of $5.4bn in the quarter to September, up from $3.1bn a year ago. Analysts had expected profit to come in [...]