All articles by Hugh Fasken
Hugh Fasken
Shinsei and Aozora fall together
The two will form the countrys sixth-largest banking group with 18,000 billion ($187 billion) in assets, though with just 55 branches, the new institution is still far behind the countrys major players in terms of distribution power
Citi’s Egg reintroduces credit card fees in the UK
Within less than a week of the UK government announcing plans to clamp down on the credit card industry, Citigroups UK-based direct banking subsidiary, Egg, rolled out a new credit card with an annual £12 fee ($19.70), the first major credit card issuer in the country to reintroduce the once-commonplace charge. The Egg Money World MasterCard, which debuted on 14 July, offers 1 percent cashback on all purchases, up to a maximum of £200 a year, meaning cardholders who charge goods worth more than £1,200 in a 12 month period to the card will recover the annual card fee.
Mobile-only UK bank launches on iPhone
MoBank, the first mobile-only banking and payments service in the UK that lets users buy and pay for items and check account balances via the internet, has launched on the Apple iPhone.
UK banks pushing fee-based accounts
Despite the prevalence of free banking in the UK, fee-earning packaged accounts are on the rise and now account for around 14 percent of all current accounts in the country The market will be worth around £1.6 billion in fees for 2009, according to RBI estimates, and up to £2 billion over the next five years.Interest in packaged accounts (PAs) continues to rise in the UK, with both banks and their customers drawn to a market that will be worth an estimated £1.6 billion ($2.6 billion) in fee income in 2009
SBI expansion drive gathers pace
Indias largest banking group, State Bank of India (SBI), fresh from its biggest expansion drive in a single day (it opened 154 branches and 1,540 ATMs on 12 July) says it will introduce banking services to 50,000 unbanked villages by March 2010.
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Barclays announces life insurance JV in Spain, Portugal and Italy
Barclays, the UKs second-largest bank by assets, has announced the formation of a joint venture with French insurer CNP Assurances which will see the bank distribute CNPs life insurance and pension products through its retail networks in Spain, Portugal and Italy. The 25-year agreement, which is subject to regulatory approval, also involves Barclays selling a 50 percent stake in its Iberian life insurance and pensions subsidiary, Barclays Vida y Pensiones Compaa de Seguros (BVP), to CNP
The trillion-dollar cost of US banks
A new report issued on 20 July by Neil Barofsky, Special Inspector General for the TARP, has attempted to throw some light on just what the recipients of the $700 billion bailout programme did with the funds received but has produced some mixed results. For starters, the report proclaimed 83 percent of respondents said they had used TARP funds to increase lending, or at least to avoid reducing lending
Lloyds TSB, Monitise launch text updates
Lloyds TSB, the UK bank which merged with HBOS last year to form Lloyds Banking Group, has launched text message balance updates for its customers via a new Balance on Demand service The service, developed by Monilink, the joint venture between m-banking specialist Monitise and payments firm Vocalink, includes the option to set-up high balance and low balance alerts, at which point customers can instantly transfer money between a savings account and a current account using their phones.
UniCredit starts UEFA football sponsorship
Italys UniCredit has kicked off its three-year sponsorship of the UEFA Champions League club football competition with a commitment to position its brand at the top in Europe and the world in terms of visibility and awareness. said that the competition would provide the bank with a premium platform for sustainable brand growth and represented a major step in the evolution of the groups sponsorship and marketing activities.
India’s HDFC Bank sees Q1 profits increase 31%
Indias second-largest private sector lender, HDFC Bank, has posted a 31 percent increase in first quarter net earnings to INR6.1 billion ($124.5 million), beating forecasts, boosted by an increase in non-interest income which soared by 76 percent compared with the first quarter a year ago. Profits before tax at the banks retail unit, however, plunged 53 percent to INR1.44 billion for the quarter, with provisions for bad debts almost doubling to INR6.59 billion, compared with INR3.44 billion a year earlier.