Banking

The Co-op Bank isn't worthy of its name

28 November 2020 9:00 am

We’ve heard a lot this week about infrastructure spending, and how much more will be needed if the UK is…

What’s the point of trying to break up ‘big tech’?

31 October 2020 9:00 am

The ‘antitrust’ law suit launched by US authorities against Google has been reported as a potential turning point in the…

Internet scammers can fool anyone – including me

8 June 2019 9:00 am

Please don’t suppose I’m unaware I’ve been an idiot. I recount what happened to me last week without expecting your…

‘The New and Fashionable Game of the Jew’, 1807

Is now a good time to talk about Jews and money?

6 April 2019 9:00 am

Is now a good time to talk about Jews and money? The Jewish Museum in London thinks so, and perhaps…

An amoral money world needs ethical campaigners more than ever

21 July 2018 9:00 am

When I first visited Canary Wharf in the early 1990s, I was struck by a set of black-and-white posters in…

Don’t believe the Tory grumbling: HS2 is on the way

21 May 2016 9:00 am

There’s a lot of negativity around HS2, and I sniff a Brexit connection. You might think Leave campaigners whose aim…

Scrapping RBS’s brand is a start. Now break it up

7 May 2016 9:00 am

Royal Bank of Scotland is at last about to dump the ‘RBS’ logotype promoted by its fallen chieftain Fred Goodwin,…

The death of investment banking as we know it? Bring it on

30 April 2016 9:00 am

Oh woe. Investment bank profits are evaporating after a disastrous contraction of trading revenues reflecting zero-to-negative interest rates, weak commodity…

Warning: the FTSE100 isn’t out of the woods just yet

23 April 2016 9:00 am

When the FTSE100 fell close to 5,500 in February, we all said ‘Mr Bear is back’. On Tuesday the index…

Sell the London Stock Exchange if you must. But not to Frankfurt!

5 March 2016 9:00 am

The London Stock Exchange is no longer the red-hot crucible it once was, given the multifarious ways by which shares,…

The City’s real players may be voting ‘out’ in the EU referendum

27 February 2016 9:00 am

‘The City is in no doubt that staying in Europe is the only way ahead,’ declared Mark Boleat for the…

If there’s a crash now, the markets will have done it to themselves

20 February 2016 9:00 am

All this talk of a new financial apocalypse, so soon after the last one, is starting to annoy me. Partly…

Sorry, George: Britain’s economy is still a tale of two nations

13 February 2016 9:00 am

Upbeat or downbeat? I asked last month whether the mood where you live is energised by enterprise or demoralised by…

France can’t build its own new nuclear power stations, let alone ours

6 February 2016 9:00 am

Amid all the turmoil in global energy markets, we should not lose sight of the UK power programme that we’re…

We don’t need research to change banking culture. We need jail sentences

9 January 2016 9:00 am

Was the Financial Conduct Authority leaned on by the Chancellor to scrap its ‘review of banking culture’? Or did it…

After the Black Friday flop, shops can get back to what they do best

5 December 2015 9:00 am

The high street flopperoo that was ‘Black Friday’ may have something to do with terrorism fears, or even the downturn…

David Cameron leaves the headquarters of the Halifax Bank of Scotland (HBOS) in 2008 (Photo: Getty)

We must play the blame game over HBOS. How else will bankers learn?

28 November 2015 9:00 am

‘Everyone remembers the names of Applegarth of Northern Rock and Goodwin of RBS, but history may judge the HBOS men…

Letters: Why politicians should leave doctors’ pay and hours alone

21 November 2015 9:00 am

The NHS and politicians Sir: The NHS is indeed in need of fundamental reform, but Max Pemberton’s excellent article (‘The…

If the world economy crashes again, blame the central bankers

14 November 2015 9:00 am

Like the Christmas pudding sampled by Hercule Poirot at Kings Lacey — but six weeks early — our Spectator Money…

Maybe bitcoin isn’t the work of the devil, after all

7 November 2015 9:00 am

I confess to being an out-and-out Luddite when it comes to bitcoin and other so-called crypto-currencies. To the extent that…

The good economic news that we forgot in the China panic

5 September 2015 9:00 am

Home from the hot Aegean, huddled by the fire as rain ruins the bank holiday weekend, I’m thinking: what gloom…

This time we really are getting tough on dodgy bankers (just don’t expect it to reach the boardroom)

8 August 2015 9:00 am

Fourteen years is a long stretch. The punishment imposed on former UBS and Citigroup trader Tom Hayes for his role…

A broad farce about banking’s dirty secrets in post-Celtic-Tiger Dublin

1 August 2015 9:00 am

It’s not Paul Murray’s settings or themes — decadent aristocrats, clerical sex abuse, the financial crisis — that mark him…

Why the City might yet miss stroppy regulator Martin Wheatley

25 July 2015 9:00 am

A City insider at last month’s Mansion House dinner told me the Financial Conduct Authority had become ‘a bit of…

Would the return of the drachma mean a bonanza for banknote printers?

4 July 2015 9:00 am

Bank job Should we buy shares in companies which print banknotes in expectation of one getting to print millions of…