Finance

Daily life at the 18th-century Bank of England

3 June 2023 9:00 am

Anne L. Murphy provides a vivid picture of clients, clerks and couriers, pay and perks, cases of fraud and incompetence and the underappreciated threat of fire and violence

Levelling up is failing

14 June 2022 8:45 pm

First the good news: the Office for National Statistics figures released today show that pay is rising at its fastest…

The TV licence is a dead duck

22 January 2022 9:00 am

‘Tell me we’re winning the media battle!’ I imagine Unilever boss Alan Jope barking at his team on Tuesday, following…

It’s time to reform the Big Four accounting firms

8 November 2021 8:00 am

It has been exactly 20 years since the Enron scandal upended the reputation of global accountancy firms, leading to the…

The Liberal Democrats have a dangerous vision for the City of London

31 August 2021 5:53 am

Liberals have always set great store by laws and declarations. It was joked about Lord Loreburn, the liberal Lord Chancellor…

The clever radical who led the City’s transformation

24 July 2021 9:00 am

It’s a vivid example of unintended consequences that the swimming-pool builders of southern England should owe so much to Sir…

The EU's debt bondage expansion

17 June 2021 9:21 pm

In the global market for government debt, worth an estimated $92 trillion (£66 trillion), it amounts to little more than a…

Will Western economies be ‘turning Japanese’ after Covid-19?

8 July 2020 9:22 pm

Japan has announced a colossal stimulus package (£1.75 trillion) as it attempts to breathe life into its Covid-19 damaged economy.…

Disrupting the world — from a small bedroom in Hounslow

23 May 2020 9:00 am

On 6 May 2010 the eurozone crisis was tearing through the continent. Greece was bankrupt, and it looked as though…

How climate change led to capitalism

13 April 2019 9:00 am

At a dinner recently I was told the story of a Canadian billionaire (now defined in banking circles as someone…

Ten years after Lehman’s fall, how close is the next crash?

15 September 2018 9:00 am

Our cinema is showing Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again and I’m reminded of a remark attributed to Mark Twain,…

The Russian spy who went to all the Tory parties

17 March 2018 9:00 am

I first met Sergey Nalobin in 2012 at Soho House. He introduced himself, in accented English, as from the Russian…

Why so many bankers secretly like Labour’s non-dom proposal

25 April 2015 9:00 am

The interesting thing about Labour’s pledge to abolish non-dom tax status — a squib designed to trap Tories into expressing…

Worry about the eurozone crisis if you like. But profit, too

14 February 2015 9:00 am

Panic in Europe means opportunity for investors

Are the Qataris ready for the curse of Canary Wharf?

22 November 2014 9:00 am

I’ve written before of a ‘curse of Qatar’ that might explain misfortunes attending the Gulf state’s UK investments, of which…

Where I’m looking for the next great banking blow-up

15 February 2014 9:00 am

A reader likens me to Dr Pangloss, the quack philosopher in Voltaire’s Candide who insisted that ‘all is for the…

Any other business: Oh dear... perhaps Standard Chartered isn't as dull as it looks

18 January 2014 9:00 am

The cautionary tale of the Co-operative Bank, its black hole and its naughty chairman has recently taught us that if…

There's a revolution — in banking

2 November 2013 9:00 am

The financial crisis is the catalyst for a belated revolution

Making It Happen, by Iain Martin - review

5 October 2013 9:00 am

Fred Goodwin’s descent from golden boy of British banking to ‘pariah of the decade’ would be the stuff of tragedy…