Category Archives: Banking

HSBC faces pressure to split after push from one of its largest shareholders

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Chinese insurer Ping An discusses listing bank’s Asian operations separately in Hong Kong

HSBC is facing pressure to break up after one of its largest shareholders told the UK-headquartered bank to consider spinning off its profitable Asian operations centred on Hong Kong.

Chinese insurer Ping An has discussed listing the Asian operations separately in Hong Kong, Bloomberg first reported. Ping An owns 8.3% of the bank, according to the latest public filings, a stake worth £8.2bn.

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Fraud in Covid bounceback loan scheme not being addressed, say MPs

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Public accounts committee say government must devote more resources to recovering nearly £5bn

MPs have criticised the government for its “unacceptable” failure to draw up plans to recover nearly £5bn taken from the coronavirus emergency bounceback loan scheme by fraudsters.

The government must give more resources to counter-fraud agencies and account properly for how much of the money will be lost forever, according to a report published on Wednesday by parliament’s influential public accounts committee.

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Scilly residents face paying hundreds to visit the bank as last branch closes

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Lloyds is to close the Isles’ last branch meaning the nearest bank will be 44 miles and a ferry ride away

For many, the ferry ride between Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly marks the beginning of a relaxing weekend away. For residents of the islands wanting to visit their nearest bank, it’s about to become an expensive necessity.

Lloyds, which ran the Isles’ last remaining branch, is about to close the site on the island of St Mary’s because of a persistent fall in customer numbers.

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Westpac fined $40m for charging fees to the dead

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Judge says bank ‘utterly failed to address the issues systematically’ as its total penalties for misconduct rise to $130m

Westpac has been fined $40m for charging fees to more than 11,800 dead people, bringing the total the federal court has ordered the bank to pay in a string of misconduct cases brought by the corporate regulator to $130m.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission launched the six cases against Westpac in November, accusing the bank of charging financial advice service fees to the dead, double-charging for insurance, collecting and paying illegal commissions, failing to properly disclose fees, allowing company accounts that should have been closed to stay open and selling personal debts to collectors at an interest rate higher than allowed.

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Vote down executive pay at Barclays and Standard Chartered, investors told

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Rebellions loom as Glass Lewis advises banks’ shareholders to reject higher base pay and excessive pensions

Barclays and Standard Chartered face the prospect of rebellions over executive pay after an influential adviser said investors should vote down pay and pensions packages for executives at the FTSE 100 banks.

Investors should defy directors and reject higher base pay for Barclays’ new chief executive and potentially “excessive” pension awards at Standard Chartered, according to Glass Lewis, which advises investors such as pension funds on how to vote at annual meetings.

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ABN Amro apologises for historical links to slavery

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Dutch bank says sorry for ‘pain and suffering’ caused by past actions and activities of its predecessor firms

The Dutch bank ABN Amro has apologised for its predecessors’ role in the slave trade, after it commissioned an investigation into the “untold suffering” it caused.

The investigation, by academics at the International Institute of Social History (IISH), an Amsterdam archive, found that two of ABN Amro’s predecessor companies were involved in either financing the operation of slave plantations directly, or underwriting the trade in products produced by slaves.

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Ex-Goldman banker Roger Ng found guilty in billion-dollar 1MDB scandal

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Ng, 49, found guilty of helping to embezzle money earmarked for development in one of biggest frauds in financial history

The former Goldman Sachs executive Roger Ng has been found guilty of helping to steal billions of dollars from Malaysia’s 1MDB sovereign wealth fund after a lengthy trial brought by US prosecutors, who described the fraud as one the largest financial scandals in history and who hoped to show that individuals are always at the center of corporate wrongdoing.

A New York jury found Ng, 49, once Goldman’s top investment banker in Malaysia, guilty of helping his former boss Tim Leissner embezzle money intended for development to benefit Malaysia’s poor from a fund connected to Malaysia’s then prime minister, Najib Razak, and then to launder the proceeds while bribing officials in Malaysia and Abu Dhabi.

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HSBC cuts references to Ukraine ‘war’ from its analyst reports

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Bank has softened language in research documents, according to report, amid pressure to exit Russia

HSBC has reportedly removed references to a “war” in Ukraine from research reports, amid calls for the British bank to close its operations in Russia.

Russia’s government refers only to a “special military operation” in Ukraine, and Vladimir Putin’s regime has criminalised reporting on its invasion that contains any information from non-official sources, with prison sentences of up to 15 years.

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NatWest returns to majority private control as it buys back £1.2bn in shares

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UK government sells more of stake in group formerly known as Royal Bank of Scotland at a loss over 2008 price

NatWest Group has returned to majority private ownership after it agreed to buy back £1.2bn of shares from the UK government, more than 13 years after the company was bailed out by taxpayers at the height of the financial crisis.

The company, formerly known as Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS), said it had agreed to make an off-market purchase of 550m shares, or 4.91% of its share capital, from HM Treasury at Friday’s closing price of 220.5p, in a statement to the stock market on Monday.

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London Stock Exchange suspends trading in 27 firms with strong links to Russia

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Energy and banking giants Gazprom and Sberbank plus EN+, Lukoil and Polyus among firms

The London Stock Exchange has suspended trading in 27 companies with strong links to Russia, including energy and banking giants Gazprom and Sberbank.

The LSE said it was moving to block trading in the companies, which also include EN+, Lukoil and Polyus, with immediate effect “in light of market conditions, and in order to maintain orderly markets”.

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Two top Russian billionaires speak out against war

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Oleg Deripaska and Ukrainian-born Mikhail Fridman call for peace, as activities come under threat from sanctions

Russian billionaires Mikhail Fridman and Oleg Deripaska have become two of the country’s first leading businesspeople to speak out against Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Fridman, who is one of Russia’s richest men, controls private equity firm LetterOne and was a founder of Alfa Bank, Russia’s largest private bank. In a letter to his employees he called for an end to the “bloodshed”.

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Swift action at last brings meaningful sanctions against Putin regime

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Selected Russian banks banned from global payments system, while Russian central bank will find it harder to spend $500bn war chest

It has taken a week to reach this point, but western governments have put down their peashooters and wheeled out the financial howitzers against Vladimir Putin.

Far-reaching new sanctions against Russia were announced on Saturday night in a joint statement from the EU, UK, US and Canada.

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London’s National Gallery under pressure over links to Credit Suisse

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Questions raised over sponsorship of exhibitions by scandal-hit Swiss bank

The National Gallery’s partnership with Credit Suisse has been thrown into question after leaked documents revealed the hidden wealth of the bank’s criminal clients, including drug traffickers, money launderers and corrupt politicians.

Credit Suisse, headquartered in Zurich, has sponsored the National Gallery since 2008 in one of the UK’s biggest arts funding deals. The partnership, renewed in 2020 and due to run until at least 2024, means Credit Suisse’s name is linked to exhibitions for artists from Raphael and Monet to Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci.

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Western powers have realised Russia is largely immune to sanctions

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Analysis: Only the financial equivalent of unleashing a nuclear arsenal will dent Russia’s foreign assets war chest

The war against Russia is one western countries want to fight with only economic sanctions, not guns.

Russia’s conflict with Ukraine, despite its long gestation and planning by Vladimir Putin and his supporters in the Kremlin, was supposed to end quickly once financial retaliation began. Yes, there would be military skirmishes on the ground, but little more than a few casualties were expected once a range of penalties began to bite.

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Kyiv furious as EU wavers on banning Russia from Swift payment system

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Ukraine foreign minister voices anger as EU leaders likely to decide against blocking Russia from international payments system

The EU faced furious remonstrations from Kyiv as Europe’s leaders looked set to hold back from imposing the potentially most damaging sanction on Russia, even as the Kremlin lay siege to Ukraine via land, air and sea.

Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, voiced his anger as EU heads of state and government appeared likely to decide against blocking Russia from an international payments system through which it receives foreign currency.

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Credit Suisse leak: three largest parties call for EU to assess Switzerland risk

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Three biggest groups in European parliament support possible move to high-risk list for money laundering

All three of the largest groups in the European parliament are demanding that the EU assess whether Switzerland should be categorised as a high-risk country for money laundering and financial crime, as reaction to the Credit Suisse leak continues to reverberate about the world.

Less than 48 hours after the Guardian and other media published an investigation into the leak as part of the Suisse secrets project, political groups representing the majority of MEPs in the European parliament support the possible blacklisting of Switzerland.

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Switzerland at risk of EU blacklist after Credit Suisse leak

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Apparent due diligence failures by Swiss bank prompts centre-right calls for EU to review relationship with Switzerland

The fallout from a huge leak of Credit Suisse banking data threatened to damage Switzerland’s entire financial sector on Monday after the European parliament’s main political grouping raised the prospect of adding the country to a money-laundering blacklist.

The European People’s party (EPP), the largest political grouping of the European parliament, called for the EU to review its relationship with Switzerland and consider whether it should be added to its list of countries associated with a high risk of financial crime.

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Revealed: king of Jordan used Swiss accounts to hoard massive wealth

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Leak shows King Abdullah was beneficial owner of at least six Credit Suisse accounts

In 2011, as popular revolts reverberated around the Middle East, a monarch in the midst of it all made some banking decisions. Sometime that year, as neighbouring Egypt and Syria withered in the face of momentous civil protests, King Abdullah II of Jordan opened two new accounts with Credit Suisse, the Swiss bank that had discreetly served the region’s well-heeled for decades.

Abdullah, one of the world’s longest-serving current monarchs, had chosen a banker that shared his approach to secrecy, particularly surrounding his personal wealth. Over the next five years, the king was the beneficial owner of at least six accounts with Credit Suisse, while his wife, Queen Rania, had another.

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1MDB scandal: bribery and bigamy loom large in ex-Goldman Sachs banker’s trial

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Roger Ng pleads not guilty to helping launder millions of dollars looted from Malaysian sovereign wealth fund

On the first day of a trial over the multibillion-dollar looting of a Malaysian government fund, US prosecutors on Monday accused a former Goldman Sachs banker of taking $35m in kickbacks as his defense team slammed the prosecution’s star witness as a bigamist who used their client as a fall guy.

Roger Ng, Goldman’s former head of investment banking in Malaysia, is charged with conspiring to launder money and violating anti-bribery law in his dealings with Malaysia’s 1MDB sovereign wealth fund.

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So no one’s going to Davos: our guide to the big issues that won’t be tackled

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We bring you Not the World Economic Forum, where monetary hawks fly and bankers explain why China is all right, really

The purpose of this column is usually fairly clear: to look ahead at the biggest event in the coming week. But this time we are breaking with tradition to bring you the week’s biggest non-event: Davos.

Every year the great and the good gather in the Swiss Alps at the grandly titled World Economic Forum to give their answers to the big questions. But Covid-19, running now into its fourth calendar year, has seen it called off again.

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