Newcastle Financial Services wins award

Story link: Newcastle Financial Services wins award

Newcastle Financial Services have been provided excellent services to their customers, something which has finally paid off for their company.

The team over at Newcastle Financial Services has managed to be nominated and actually win the award at the annual industry conference, a great achievement for any financial institution

Newcastle Financial Services wins award

Newcastle Financial Services has been announced as the winner of an award at an annual industry conference.

The building society picked up the top large practice for investment sales accolade at the annual Openwork meet in Birmingham for its Investment and Portfolio ISAs.

New bonds on the market

Story link: New bonds on the market

Both Alliance & Leicester and Abbey have recently announced their launch of new bonds. The new bonds will be offering a fixed rate of interest, which of course means they will not be affected by the fluctuations in the Bank of England rate changes which seem to be happening on almost a weekly basis.

New bonds on the market

Alliance & Leicester and Abbey have announced the launch of a new bond which offers a guaranteed fixed rate of interest.

The two-year bond offering will pay interest at a rate of 4.01 per cent a year on balances of between £30,000 and £200,000.

Banks to make Britain go bust

Story link: Banks to make Britain go bust

The structure and way that banks operate make them destined for failure. The taxpayer has footed the bill for bail outs too many times before, so the banks should be taking responsibility for their actions.

Banks to make Britain go bust

The Crunch is about to bite again.

First, the US housing market nose-dived, racking up huge sub-prime loan losses for the banks. They cut their customers’ credit lines, passing on the pain to the rest of the world economy. Property prices and stockmarkets plunged.

Lloyds employees want a pay rise

Story link: Lloyds employees want a pay rise

Bailed out by the taxpayer, won’t lend any money to the taxpayer, but now they want the tax payers to foot the bill for pay rises, I don’t think so!
If they can’t afford to fund themselves then they certainly shouldn’t be increasing wages!

Lloyds employees want a pay rise

Lloyds Banking Group has sounded out shareholders about a change in its executive remuneration plans that could generate pay rises for its directors despite being bailed out by the taxpayer.
The bank, in which the government holds a 44% stake, is understood to have approached big City investors between a month and six weeks ago with outline proposals for a modified pay package for the executive team of the bank .

Hefty deposit for first time buyers

Story link: Hefty deposit for first time buyers

If the government does not start to force banks to lend, you will see banks tightening their lending criteria for first time buyers even further. I have already heard of many mortgage deals being tied in to a 30%+ deposit upon completion, which is a huge amount, especially for a first time buyer.

Hefty deposit for first time buyers

Some 38% of those already saving towards a deposit say they are looking to increase the rate at which they put their money away in 2009.
Meanwhile, 40% of those without any form of deposit stated that they had now decided to start saving this year.

Bet on the pound

Story link: Bet on the pound

I’m sure that traders come to their own conclusions via their own analysis and the benefits of a long term up trend will be spotted, when the first sign appears. At the moment though, the only way is down!

Bet on the pound

Investors should keep betting the British pound and gilts will rise because the country’s economic slump is being overplayed, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
“We’re bullish the pound and gilts,” Thomas Stolper, a Goldman Sachs economist in London, said today in an interview. “The macro picture in the U.K. is not as poor as many people try to portray.”

Printing money is go

Story link: Printing money is go

So you would think that this is all good for the UK economy, lots more money in the markets.
Printing money obviously has its down sides too, even if it allows banks to re-enter credit based markets.

Printing money is go

The Bank of England was today given a licence to print more money to bail out the failing economy.
In a drastic new twist to the financial crisis, the Bank’s monetary policy committee has been told it can increase the money supply if it believes more cash is needed to kick-start the financial sector.

Lloyds HBOS merger gets go-ahead

Story link: Lloyds HBOS merger gets go-ahead

This could be good news for the share price in the long run, although the take up by current shareholders of the shares offered was really low, this could signal instability within the share price for the coming weeks.

Lloyds HBOS merger gets go-ahead

The merger of banks Lloyds TSB and HBOS has been granted the final legal approval by a court in Edinburgh.
Following the decision by the Court of Session, the new Lloyds Banking Group is due to start trading from next week.

HSBC Scam

Story link: HSBC Scam

The details here are slightly vague, but as they say ‘theres no publicity like bad publicity’.
This definitely is not going to do the brand image of the company any good at all.

HSBC Scam

HSBC has emerged as one the largest victims of Bernard Madoff’s alleged fraud with potential exposure of about $1bn to the investment manager’s collapsed venture.
Confirming an earlier report in the Financial Times, the bank said in a statement that it had provided financing to “a small number” of institutional clients who invested in funds with Mr Madoff.

Investments continue

Story link: Investments continue

Now more than ever people will be looking at alternative investments which mean their hard earnt cash doesn’t get lent out to people and in reward they get 0% or there abouts in interest.

In my opinion the private investment sector and the awareness and popularity of Angel Investing is likely to be a big hit over the next few years.

Investments continue

Speculation had been mounting that the Chancellor would haul in High Street lenders after Gordon Brown threatened to ’speak to them’ last week.

RETAIL investors are a savvy bunch these days. They are less likely than one might think to be fazed by the double-barrelled shotgun of the financial crisis and the recession.

So says Dick Saunders, chief executive of the Investment Management Association, the body that is the collegiate voice of fund management in Britain.