Things worth reading: 20th July 2020
Chris Skinner
JULY 19, 2020
Things we’re reading today include … Royal Bank of Scotland to change name to NatWest next week America’s banks batten down the hatches as pandemic takes its toll The U.S.
uk scotland 
Mister Bó Jangles: the story of yet another new UK challenger bank
Chris Skinner
OCTOBER 15, 2019
Like quite a few big banks, the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has been messing about with doing digital by launching a number of new initiatives. What fascinates me … The post Mister Bó Jangles: the story of yet another new UK challenger bank appeared first on Chris Skinner's blog.
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NatWest returns to majority private control as it buys back £1.2bn in shares
TheGuardian
MARCH 28, 2022
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.
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Treasury to end oversight of £425m scheme to help banks after RBS bailout
TheGuardian
DECEMBER 28, 2023
Under so-called state aid rules, which applied when the UK was still a member of the European Union, RBS money was given to smaller challenger banks to spend developing their services for business customers, in an effort to promote competition and offset the market-skewing effects of RBS’s £45bn government bailout in 2008.
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UK could face ‘banking crisis worse than 2008’ if City fails to prepare for fossil fuel collapse
TheGuardian
JANUARY 11, 2023
Report from climate activist groups says City is unprepared for potential collapse in value of fossil fuel assets The UK could suffer 500,000 job losses and be forced to spend £674bn of taxpayer cash to rescue its banks, unless the City prepares for the value of fossil fuels to collapse as a result of climate crisis regulations , research shows.
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The Top 1000 banks in the world
Chris Skinner
JULY 4, 2017
BOOM FOR FRENCH BANKS AS BREXIT DAMAGES BRITISH RIVALS 3 July 2017: The fallout from Brexit has pushed the UK’s leading banks further down The Banker’s latest ranking of the Top 1000 banks. UK banks made less than half the profits compared to French banks and the gap is likely to widen with a Macron business boost expected across the Channel.
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How underrated chancellor Alistair Darling helped weather financial crisis
TheGuardian
NOVEMBER 30, 2023
The news was grim. RBS was running out of cash and would soon have to close branches and shut down cash machines.
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Lloyds sets aside £450m for car loan fines and payouts
TheGuardian
FEBRUARY 21, 2024
The lender, which also owns the Bank of Scotland and Halifax brands, said there was “significant uncertainty” over the extent of any misconduct or loss to customers that could result in penalties or payouts.
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60 Lloyds, Halifax and Bank of Scotland to shut 60 branches
TheGuardian
MARCH 23, 2022
Union says 124 jobs across UK will be lost, with affected branches closing by end of 2022 Lloyds Banking Group has announced it will shut another 60 branches across the UK, in the latest example of the rapid decline of lenders on the high street.
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Braveheart or need a brave heart?
Celent Banking
SEPTEMBER 12, 2014
On September 18 th , a new nation could be born, as Scotland goes to the polls to vote whether it should become independent from the rest of the UK. Debate rages about how quickly Scotland could join Europe, so equally the Euro is out as well. Scotland would require a central bank to be able to issue a currency.
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UK government sells £1.26bn of NatWest shares
TheGuardian
MAY 22, 2023
State bailed out lender, formerly known as RBS Group, in near-£46bn deal during 2008 financial crisis The UK government has sold £1.26bn of NatWest shares back to the bank, which it bailed out in a near £46bn deal in 2008. Continue reading.
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Independent Panel To Review UK’s FinTech Sector
PYMNTS
JULY 21, 2020
A panel established to grow the United Kingdom’s (UK) financial technology (FinTech) sector plans a review of the industry to identify opportunities for growth, the government announced Tuesday (July 21). The United Kingdom, comprised of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, employs 60,000 people in FinTech.
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RBS Shutters Bó To Focus On SMB Challenger Bank Mettle
PYMNTS
MAY 3, 2020
High Street lender Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), is being closed down by the British state-backed lender NatWest, following a six-month opening launch, according to a Yahoo Finance UK report. The circumstances have changed,” RBS CEO Alison Rose told Yahoo Finance UK on Friday. Bó , the digital bank developed by U.K.
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NatWest: the bailed-out bank that’s become an economic bellwether
TheGuardian
FEBRUARY 12, 2022
The high street lender may soon no longer be majority state-owned: and its fortunes are key to the wider UK economy It has taken 14 years but a minor miracle is about to happen, probably within months: the state’s stake in NatWest will fall below 50%. Hallelujah.
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Treasury sells £1.1bn of NatWest shares back to bank
TheGuardian
MARCH 19, 2021
The UK taxpayers’ stake in NatWest has been reduced after the government sold £1.1bn of shares in the bank, which was bailed out during the financial crisis more than a decade ago. The government’s stake in NatWest, formerly known as Royal Bank of Scotland, fell to 59.8% after it sold 591m shares back to the bank at 190.5p
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FCA launches proceedings against NatWest over alleged money laundering
TheGuardian
MARCH 16, 2021
The Financial Conduct Authority alleges that NatWest, a subsidiary of NatWest Group ( formerly known as Royal Bank of Scotland ), allowed “increasingly large cash deposits” to be paid into the accounts of a UK-registered customer of the bank, between November 2011 and October 2016.
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Virgin Money, Lloyds To Cut 1,200 Jobs
PYMNTS
FEBRUARY 27, 2020
Lloyds Banking Group, which includes the Lloyds, Halifax and Bank of Scotland brands, has cut around 5,000 staff members in the last two years. Lucy Dimes, group business transformation officer at Virgin Money UK, told Sky News that closing branches “is never taken lightly.” billion, the BBC reported.
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Virgin Money to close 31 branches across Scotland and north of England
TheGuardian
SEPTEMBER 30, 2021
Move to cut one in five outlets means bank has more than halved number of branches since 2018 Virgin Money has announced it will close 31 branches – almost all in Scotland and the north of England – in the latest stage of the UK banking sector’s retreat from the high street.
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Javid and Osborne ‘lobbied to reduce mis-selling payouts to small business’
TheGuardian
DECEMBER 14, 2021
Independent review finds City regulator changed compensation rules after pressure from UK banks Sajid Javid and George Osborne put pressure on the City’s financial regulator to reduce compensation payouts from big banks to small business victims of a mis-selling scandal, an independent review has found.
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Lloyds profits plunge after £4.2bn put aside for Covid defaults
TheGuardian
FEBRUARY 24, 2021
Banking group becomes latest UK lender to resume dividend payments Coronavirus – latest updates See all our coronavirus coverage Profits at Lloyds Banking Group have plunged 72% after the bank was forced to put aside more than £4bn to protect itself from a potential jump in defaults linked to the Covid crisis.
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Small Biz Complaints Get UK Bank Support
PYMNTS
NOVEMBER 30, 2018
The agreement comes amid suggestions to the industry group known as UK Finance , which included boosting the powers of ombudsman services and setting in place a framework that is geared toward addressing “unresolved historic complaints.”. Financial Times reports that a number of banks in the U.K. million USD) to £3 billion.
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NatWest warns of challenging times ahead despite return to profit
TheGuardian
OCTOBER 30, 2020
NatWest – formerly known as Royal Bank of Scotland – put aside another £254m to cover a potential surge in defaults linked to the coronavirus crisis in the third quarter, 60% lower than the £628m that analysts expected. Related: Lloyds cashes in on UK mortgage boom as profits rise Continue reading.
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79 Scotland Sheds Its Industrial Reputation For FinTech Focus
PYMNTS
DECEMBER 9, 2016
Before we jump into the post, here are a few quick facts about Glasgow and its tech scene: Glasgow it the largest city in Scotland and the third largest in the U.K., Glasgow makes the highest contribution (16 percent) to GVA of all cities in Scotland. As part of the FinTech push within Scotland, the U.K.
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Royal Bank of Scotland leverages FCA-approved digital advice in the UK
Bobsguide
MARCH 23, 2016
Recently, Royal Bank of Scotland eliminated 220 advisors with the plans to replace them with ‘automated advice.’ ’ To drive down costs for customers while maintaining service levels, this advice strategy makes sense. In fact, RBS firmly believes that this is exactly what its customers.
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UK government to sell part of its NatWest stake – business live
TheGuardian
JULY 22, 2021
Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news UK to trim its NatWest shareholding Shares bought during 2008 bailout of Royal Bank of Scotland UK now owns 54.7% 8.57am BST Shares in NatWest have dropped in early trading, as investors anticipate the UK government selling some of its stake over the next 12 months.
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Delaying NatWest share sales doesn’t matter. Just get the best price | Nils Pratley
TheGuardian
APRIL 3, 2023
A path to a full disposal by 2025-26 – a target the government set itself in 2021 – seemed assured, especially as UK Government Investments (UKGI), which manages the holding, cracked on with the selling and got the stake down to 41.5% A £1.2bn sale of shares had cut the Treasury’s holding to 48.1%. in short order.
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UK’s Starling Bank Seeks Government Grants To Build New SMB Offerings
PYMNTS
JULY 6, 2020
The upstart financial institution is seeking two grants — £25 million and £35 million — from Banking Competition Remedies (BCR) funding to make new small and medium-sized business (SMB) offerings, Yahoo Finance UK reported. BCR has a pool of funds created by the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) to foster competition in the British banking space.
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143 UK Retail Banks Draft FinTech Alliance Guidelines
PYMNTS
NOVEMBER 8, 2018
banks that put them together includes the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), Barclays, HSBC UK, Lloyds Banking Group and Santander — as well as vendors like MarketInvoice, The ID Co. The new guidelines, developed by the British Standards Institute (BSI), aim to address issues that interfere with FinTech firms and banks forming alliances.
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What do two million accounts tell us about the impact of Covid-19 on small businesses?
BankUnderground
JULY 16, 2021
Covid-19 led to a sharp reduction in economic activity in the UK. In a recent Staff Working Paper we use a new data set containing monthly information on the current accounts of two million UK SMEs. The youngest SMEs in consumer-facing sectors in Scotland and London were hit hardest.
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Consumer group stresses ‘vital role’ of free ATMs in Scotland
NCR
MAY 15, 2018
Free-to-use ATMs have a “vital role” to play in the lives of most people and communities in Scotland, according to a UK consumer group. revealed that nine out of ten people in Scotland (89 percent) see free cash machines as important to their everyday lives. A survey by Which? Image: iStock/123ducu.
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49 Lloyds Launches Open Banking App Feature
PYMNTS
FEBRUARY 7, 2019
Lloyds and Halifax customers can view personal accounts from six other banks, and the Bank of Scotland debuted the feature for its customers in December of 2018. In May, HSBC UK launched “Connected Money,” which also lets customers see other accounts, but it worked with a screen scraping function and not an open banking one.
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Today In Payments: COVID Hit UK Hard; Amex Negotiating To Buy SMB Lender Kabbage
PYMNTS
AUGUST 12, 2020
COVID Hits UK Economy Harder Than Other Developed Economies. England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland saw gross domestic product, the value of goods and services, shrink more than 20 percent in the second quarter (Q2). In today’s top news, the impact of the pandemic has hit the U.K.
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Karma fintech secures Scottish Government backing for salary advance app
The Paypers
APRIL 27, 2020
UK-based fintech Karma , which offers interest-free salary advances, has been announced to be launched worldwide after a successful trial in Scotland.
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UK: Vizolution secures GBP 10 mln in funding
The Paypers
NOVEMBER 2, 2018
(The Paypers) Vizolution , the UK-based customer experience tech provider, has secured GBP 10 million in funding from Santander, Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), and HSBC.
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Meeting minimum banking requirements – what banks need to consider
NCR
APRIL 4, 2018
One area where the issue of branch closures has been in the news recently is Scotland, and this has led some figures in the government to call for changes in the law to ensure consumers are not left without access to banking solutions. Taking advantage of technology.
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Pinsent Masons teams up with Fintech Scotland to expand outside London
The Paypers
MAY 25, 2018
(The Paypers) UK-based company Pinsent Masons has been named a global strategic partner with representative body Fintech Scotland.
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How house prices respond to interest rates depends on where they are in the country
BankUnderground
JUNE 27, 2023
Average prices have already fallen by 1–2% in the UK and by more in the US. Some commentators – including on this blog and elsewhere – have argued that the large increase in UK house prices over recent decades was driven by a fall in interest rates. The evidence for the UK is even less extensive. Now interest rates are rising.
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92 Community Banks Debut FinTech Alliance
PYMNTS
NOVEMBER 13, 2018
Guidelines From The UK. The group includes such banks as the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and Santander, and FinTech firms like The ID Co. Among the names joining up are Citizens & Northern Bank (based in Pennsylvania), Inland Bank (Illinois) and Lincoln Savings Bank (Iowa). and MarketInvoice.
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Location, location, location? How UK housing preferences shifted during the pandemic
BankUnderground
JANUARY 26, 2023
Yet between March 2020 and December 2021 (‘the pandemic’), housing prices grew in the UK, reaching at the time their highest growth rate in a decade. First, housing prices continued to grow across all UK regions through the pandemic. Martina Fazio and Gary Harper During recessions, and indeed pandemics, housing prices usually fall.
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95 RBS uses branches to push digital banking
NCR
MARCH 3, 2017
In the UK, Metro Bank is investing in its branch network , while Atom Bank, one of the biggest names on the challenger bank scene, has gone down the purely digital route. Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has adopted a strategy that seems designed to bridge the gap between branch and digital banking.
What types of businesses have used government support during the Covid-19 pandemic?
BankUnderground
JULY 5, 2021
During the pandemic, UK businesses have received unprecedented levels of government support , set to total 9% of GDP. We match this scheme data to a large public data set with information on all limited companies in the UK, based on names and unique identifiers. Will Banks, Sudipto Karmakar and Danny Walker.
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Facial recognition – the future of online banking logins?
NCR
APRIL 27, 2017
People in the UK using Windows 10 devices to log in to their Lloyds Bank, Halifax and Bank of Scotland accounts will have the option to confirm their identity with their fingerprint or by facial recognition, rather than entering passwords or ID numbers.
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Even in a Crisis, the Best Collections Strategy Is to Avoid Collections
FICO
SEPTEMBER 7, 2022
In the UK, the stats speak for themselves. Despite household spending being down due to savings getting plundered during the pandemic, it’s anticipated that UK consumer borrowing will reach a five-year high, growing a further 8% by the end of the year — equating to almost £16 billion. In Scotland, they’re up 8% year-on-year.
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52 Reverse Factoring Intensifies The B2B Late Payments Debate
PYMNTS
OCTOBER 28, 2019
Recent reports in Daily Business Group revealed SMBs in Scotland are hesitant to export across borders for fear of late and non-payment. According to UK Export Finance CEO Louis Taylor, this strain of late payments makes access to financing options more important, with agreement from Secretary of State for International Trade Liz Truss.
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