By Ian Fraser Published: July 15th, 2012 Published: Sunday Herald In his glory days Fred Goodwin aspired to make Royal Bank of Scotland a global bank on which the sun never set. Corporate videos extolling the group’s global reach were routinely played at investor meetings. His legacy is a world of trouble, with the bank […]
July 15th, 2012 By Rowan Bosworth-Davies Speaking on the Marr Show on BBC One on March 23rd, the former Daily Telegraph editor and historian Max Hastings said a “senior central banker” recently told him that London is now considered to be the “money-laundering capital of the world”. Hastings was discussing the shooting of a Russian […]
July 13th, 2012 On Tuesday, I was interviewed by Max Keiser of the Keiser Report about the UK’s lack of appetite for prosecuting ‘white collar’ crime. Max also asked me about the Libor rigging scandal, swaps misselling by UK banks, and much else besides. The progeamme was broadcast on Wednesday night and made available via […]
July 12th, 2012 Speaking at the Just Banking conference in April, Prof Richard Werner called for an end to the suppression and repression of the third sector, including mutually-owned financial institutions and credit unions, while also calling for the introduction of a “regime of credit guidance”. Werner, chair in international banking at University of Southampton School […]
July 12th, 2012 The American economist Adam Posen, a member of the monetary policy committee of the Bank of England, recently told a conference in Edinburgh that it’s high time the UK lost its “bank fetish” and stopped treating banking as strategic industry. He said we need counter-cyclical taxes on real estate and that we must […]
July 10th, 2012 Paul Moore, the ‘HBOS whistleblower’, has put himself forward as Marcus Agius’s successor as chairman of Barclays. Moore first put himself forward for the role last Wednesday (July 4th) and is now proposing a formal manifesto of change for Barclays, with a view to cleaning up the scandal ridden bank in the wake […]
July 9th, 2012 If you haven’t already watched Charles Ferguson’s Inside Job, which won the Oscar for best documentary in February 2011, (and indeed even if you have already seen it) I strongly recommend watching this film. Turn on full screen and make sure you have decent speakers or headphones. As I said in my February […]
By Prem Sikka, University of Essex July 8th, 2012 The role of Barclays bank in manipulating the London Interbank Offered Rate (Libor) continues to dominate international financial media. The bank has already attracted fines from regulators in the UK and theUSA. But further revelations are likely as US Senate Committees are flexing their muscles, the UK […]
July 9th, 2012 By Lawrence Serewicz The Treasury select committee’s recent questioning of Bob Diamond, the former CEO of Barclays, in Portcullis House told us more about the weaknesses of select committees than it did about Barclays, Libor rigging or Bob Diamond. The committee asked poor questions, and received worse answers. The reasons for this may be political; […]
July 8th, 2012 Another great piece of work by William Banzai (WilliamBanzai7) As The Economist said in its excellent “The rotten heart of finance” article:- Over the past week damning evidence has emerged, in documents detailing a settlement between Barclays and regulators in America and Britain, that employees at the bank and at several other […]