April 20th, 2013 Trust in UK financial regulation and auditing cannot be rebuilt unless John Griffith-Jones (pictured right) steps down as chairman of the Financial Conduct Authority, writes HBOS whistleblower Paul Moore, who is also calling for a public inquiry into KPMG’s pre-crash audits of the collapsed bank HBOS. The need for such an inquiry was reinforced on 11 April, [...]
By Ian Fraser Published: Sunday Herald Date: February 10th, 2013 It has been described as the biggest banking felony in history … yet no-one has been prosecuted for the Libor fixing scandal. Ian Fraser looks at the RBS sacrificial lambs. [An edited version of this article was published on pages 34-35 the Sunday Herald on [...]
February 6th, 2013 If this is the best he can do, Royal Bank of Scotland chief executive Stephen Hester should consider throwing in the towel and conceding what most people already know — that RBS, as it stands, is unmanageable and running an unsustainable business model. Hester (who remains in denial about the egregious wrongdoing [...]
February 6th, 2013 Kevin Mason, a commenter on the Guardian website, had this to say about the £390 million settlement that Royal Bank of Scotland reached with the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, US Department of Justice and Financial Services Authority over rampant Libor-rigging today [Mason's words sourced from Graeme Wearden's excellent Libor rigging live blog published [...]
By Ian Fraser Published: Sunday Herald Date: December 9th, 2012 Paul Moore, the whistleblower whose evidence was key to last week’s hearings of the parliamentary commission on banking, has accused his former HBOS boss Sir James Crosby of “trying to rewrite history” about Moore’s sacking from the Edinburgh-based bank. In an interview with the Sunday Herald, Moore [...]
November 6th, 2012 By Gordon Neave Picture: The Economist During the late 1980s and early 1990s British bankers changed for the worse. Having spent most of the past three centuries as financial herbivores — solid, reliable and rational members of the community — they metamorphosed into wild, hungry carnivores. Fuelled by commissions, bonuses and greed, [...]
By Ian Fraser Published: Sunday Herald Date: October 21st, 2012 Stephen Hester and Sir Philip Hampton may be in bullish mood, but is RBS as strong as they claim? By Ian Fraser (Image: The Sun) THE chairman and chief executive of Royal Bank of Scotland had something of a spring in their step last week. The [...]
October 10th, 2012 Today the Financial Services Authority formally relaxed capital and liquidity rules on UK banks in the vague hope this might kickstart lending and do something to ensure the UK economy can pick itself up off the floor. The Canary Wharf-based regulator also said that it would not require banks to hold extra [...]
October 8th, 2012 Despite a banking and financial crisis of near biblical proportions in 2007-09, which saw the collapse and state-funded rescue of many of Britain’s banks, the country’s regulators have singularly failed to get to the bottom of what happened. The way in which the Financial Services Authority has sought to close the book [...]
By Ian Fraser Published: Sunday Herald Date: September 30th, 2012 Fund managers are ripping off their customers through a minefield of hidden charges, misleading advertising, and obfuscation over performance, according the founders of new campaign aimed at ensuring investors get a fairer deal. Alan and Gina Miller – a husband and wife team who held [...]