Results tagged “banking” from Business Insider Blog

It has been interesting watching the reaction over the past few weeks to some fairly hefty payouts across the corporate sector.

Bankers like Bob Diamond, Stephen Hester and Eric Daniels all walked away with millions of pounds worth of benefits and shares.

Alongside them hundreds of other bankers were paid more than £1 million each to a collective outcry of horror.

Compare and contrast this to the joyous outpourings shown in newspapers and broadcast media when John Lewis announced all of its staff - including the executive team - were getting the equivalent of 18 per cent of their salary.

Royal bank of Scotland will take little comfort from its $100 million settlement award from the US Securities and Exchange Commission from Goldman Sachs admission it was economical with the truth in its selling of toxic bond deals wrapped up in Abacus 2007-AC1.

RBS is now "considering all options" which obviously includes the possibility of pursuing Goldman's for a considerably larger chunk of the $870 million it lost in the Abacus investment deal.

Those losses stemmed from the fraudulent omission Goldman's hedge fund client, Paulson & Co was not only selecting mortgages for the portfolio, but was also making side bets those mortgages would drop in value.

A very cosy arrangement for Goldman's, which also charged Paulson & Co $15 million for the privilege of selecting mortgage backed securities to go into Abacus both Goldmans and Paulson must have known were at the very least suspect.

HSBC's Scottish chief executive John Rendall was in few different parts of the bank's Edinburgh office for this photo shoot.

Staff on the floor of the branch were happy to melt into the background when shot were being taken there.

Photographer Lesley Martin was also taken by the unusual lighting in the lift which gives a nice backdrop to some of these pictures.

The interview which goes with the piece is here.

In the wake of the 1929 stock market crash, banks in the United States were banned from mixing commercial and investment banking for more than 60 years.

The first of two Bills which made up the Glass-Steagall Act was brought into law in February 1932 in an effort to curb deflation and increase the US government's ability to provide financing to the banking sector.

This was followed by the second Act, passed in June 1933 separating banking types according to their business.

The argument being the new law would protect shareholders from undue risks made by the investment side of the business which investors had no voting control over.

But the separation of investment and commercial banking enshrined in the Glass-Steagall Acts of 1932 and 1933 were repealed in 1999.

The Treasury appears to have won its battle with the Board of Royal Bank of Scotland over a speculated £1.5bn bonus pot for its investment banking arm.

RBS, having bowed to intense political pressure, has now agreed to pay bonuses at the "low, low end of the scale" - even if this means it will lose staff to better paying rivals.

Lloyds have also announced a bonus package for its top 200 executives of up to 80 per cent of their salaries, in a shares only package spread over three years.

And this on the same day the National Audit Office revealed the actual cost to the taxpayer so far for the banking crisis currently stands at ￡850bn.