Last week Emporiki Bank, the premier troubled Greek bank, took further actions to improve returns from its real estate portfolio as well as inject capital into the business. Emporiki provides retail, commercial and investment banking services to its customers who are mainly in Greece however it does have an international office in London as well […]
Banking
Bank Loan Scheme Is The Last Step Before Nationalisation?
Today the UK government launched their last attempt to unfreeze the credit markets with a three pronged bank loan scheme: Working Capital Scheme – cost £10bn – provides a 50% guarantee on £20 billion of short term loans to businesses with a turnover of less than £500m with banks having to register a portfolio of […]
Barclays and RBS Share Prices Plunge
Barclays and RBS share prices fell by 25% and 17% respectively today; Barclays from £1.30 to £0.98 and RBS from £0.418 to £0.347. My wife indicated that the deeper plunge at Barclays was due to my departure from the group on Wednesday. She said that once the markets got hold of the news there was […]
Barclays Sheds Another 2100 Jobs (Including Mine)
In response to market conditions Barclays shed another 2100 jobs today The economic recession just got a bit more real for me, as my job was one of the ones to go as Barclays Global Investors reigned back their development activities in the UK. A couple of weeks ago I had been sure my job […]
UK Interest Rates Drop To All Time Low
The Bank of England dropped interest rates by 0.5% to 1.5%, the lowest level ever. This is unlikely to have much effect on the level of bank lending as banks will take the opportunity to wider the spread between the rate thay borrow at and the rate they lend at. The 363 rule of banking, […]
