This week it was revealed that the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is investigating allegations that London-based currency traders in large financial institutions were manipulating exchange rates…
Mortgage rates for the government’s Help to Buy scheme were announced yesterday amid the usual torrent of criticism for a policy that has very few friends. One Daily Telegraph commentator deemed the policy…
The news that Coles may be seeking a banking licence would, if confirmed, put the supermarket group and its parent company Wesfarmers in direct competition with Australia’s major banks. It would allow…
A bank in trouble negotiates with its regulatory authorities and other banks for support, but is refused a bail out and closes abruptly, sparking a global contraction as its obligations are left unhonoured…
The surprising news that Larry Summers has withdrawn his bid to become the next chair of the US Federal Reserve has opened up the big question of who should lead America’s central bank. The new front runner…
The fifth anniversary of Lehman Brothers’ demise is an opportune moment to take stock and contextualise what has happened since. And one good way to do so is to compare this government’s policy response…
This weekend will see the 5th anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers, an event that tipped the world into economic crisis and shoved banking into the spotlight. The critical state of the world’s…
After an absence of 18 years, TSB banks reappeared on the British high street this week. Though much of the initial commentary focused on the new bank’s opening day website crash, a more interesting question…
Another week, another banking scandal. In the past few years we have seen what appears to be an endless line-up of banks behaving badly. They have engaged in rate manipulation, rogue trading, product mis-selling…
As long as there have been financial markets, there have been serious financial losses. But the traders of today have shown a talent for blowing billions. During the most recent round of financial misadventures…
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, has become increasingly involved in debates about the UK financial sector. The embarrassing revelations that the Church has invested indirectly in payday lender…
Kevin Davis, Australian Centre for Financial Studies
How will the shape of Australia’s financial sector evolve over the coming decades? How will the demand for finance change? Where will the supply of funds come from? Can we be confident that available funds…
Bailing out banks is so 2008. It seems 2013 is the year of the bank “bail in”. It started with the Co-operative Bank in the UK, when the bank’s management decided to “bail in” some of its bond holders…
Academics, politicians, international economists and central bankers alike talk and talk about the theoretical benefits of a European banking union. But these reflections go far beyond the current, real…
Like many Canadians to achieve high office in his country over the past half-century, Mark Carney came from an ordinary, middle-class background. And like his two immediate predecessors as governor of…
For a brief period of time in the 1980s, one of the biggest selling t-shirts carried a print of an arrow which simply said “I’m with stupid”. It pointed to the person next to the witty wearer. In the 1990s…
Whether it is due to benchmark rigging, massive payouts to top executives, or failures to lend to house-buyers and businesses, the banking sector continues to make the headlines for all the wrong reasons…
As in the movie that led Pedro Almodóvar to become an internationally famous film director in the late 1980s, Spanish banks have been “on the verge of a nervous breakdown” during the 4 last years, facing…
Collapsing business deals, massive financial losses, and a “junk” rating have made recent months a nightmare for the Co-op Bank. In March it announced losses of £634m for the 2012 financial year, largely…