By Ian Fraser Published: Sunday Herald Date: 29 March 2015 Note: This is an unedited version of the article that was published in the Sunday Herald on 29 March 2015. This draft dates from 20 March 2015. The published version is available here. The Royal Bank of Scotland has been rapped over the knuckles by a […]
By Ian Fraser Published: Signet Magazine Date: July 16th, 2012 (minor edits March 28th, 2013) Scottish banking was once renowned for prudential management. Today the association is rather different. Financial journalist Ian Fraser gives his view of events behind the collapse of RBS and HBOS and calls for a Leveson-style inquiry. PDF version of this […]
June 29th, 2012 I just love this one. Apologies in advance to the sensitive, in case you’re offended by the repeated use of a certain word. It was made using Xtranormal h/t Anat Admati, professor of finance and economics Stanford Graduate School of Business. Follow Anat on twitter
February 27th, 2010 (updated June 22nd, 2012) HBOS’s entrance on The Mound; Image: The We Lessons must be learnt from the short and calamitous history of HBOS, the bank which effectively went bust in September 2008, writes Ian Fraser (Note: This article was first posted under the headline “HBOS: When did the rot set in? […]
Editorial note: June 22nd, 2012 A revised and updated version of this blog is now available via the following link:- The Worst Bank in the World? HBOS’s Calamitous Seven Year Life
By Ian Fraser Published: QFINANCE Date: February 2nd, 2012 Financial commentators are, suddenly, in demand and it’s largely down to the continuing failure of banks to properly reform themselves in the wake of the global financial crisis and the current public rage about bankers who continue to award themselves massive pay packages even though their […]
December 17th, 2011 By Brett Sherman Is it reasonable to believe that Wall Street used complexity as a tool to dupe even sophisticated investors as to the quality of bonds backed by non-conforming mortgages during the United States housing bubble? In a word – ABSOLUTELY. Indeed, there was so much complexity in the various methods […]
December 14th, 2011 An edited version of this blog post is available at Huffington Post UK The FSA spent an estimated £10m on its report into the failure of RBS, including £7.7m paid to ‘Big Four’ accountants PWC. But the Canary Wharf-based regulator has lived up to its name (the Fundamentally Supine Authority) and concluded […]
By Ian Fraser Published: QFINANCE Date: September 28th, 2011 Why does anyone rely on ‘sellside’ research? The investment analysts who produce it, for free, tend to work for investment banks that also have some very big ticket services to sell, such as the underwriting of IPOs, to the very companies whose performance they are supposed […]
July 19th, 2010 Chinless wonder: UKFI’s Robin Budenberg The coalition government of David Cameron and Nick Clegg is reverting to type where appointments to UK Financial Investments, the vehicle established by the previous government to hold the public’s stakes in lenders including RBS and Lloyds Banking Group. Most of the people who work for this […]