Receiving Wide Coverage ...
Not going away
Sherborne Investors, Barclays' second largest shareholder, is making a bigger push to get a seat on the bank’s board after it was rebuffed last September. The move is “Sherborne’s strongest warning yet to Barclays to heed its advice to
It also “sets the stage for a
Out of the World
World Bank President Jim Yong Kim announced his resignation on Monday, more than three years ahead of schedule. His unexpected departure sets up “a potential dispute between the U.S. and other World Bank member countries over selecting the next leader of the world’s largest development-finance institution.” Kim’s resignation, in order to join a private infrastructure firm, leaves the organization “grappling with confusion and uncertainty over its leadership. Mr. Kim’s departure is likely to trigger a debate about whether the decades-long tradition of allowing the sitting U.S. administration to pick the president of the World Bank should continue, given Donald Trump’s deep skepticism of multilateral institutions.”
Wall Street Journal
Home sweet home
Mortgage rates have quietly fallen to about 4.5%, their lowest levels in the past eight months, “offering a potential boost to the housing market after a rough patch in recent months.” While that is still about 50 basis points higher than a year ago, it's also down from a more-than-seven-year high of nearly 5% in October. "The decline stands to give consumers another shot at obtaining
She's out
Nellie Liang withdrew her nomination to the Federal Reserve’s board of governors, “a casualty of
Board shuffle
Wells Fargo said it
Financial Times
Will it float?
Royal Bank of Scotland took a 25% stake in Loot, a fintech start-up, which "provides a current account and pre-paid debit card with controls and spending insights to help young people save." The investment marks the first official move by Bó, the digital-only bank RBS expects to open this year. “Britain’s banking market is still dominated by a small number of big banks and building societies, but RBS has
Separately, the paper asks just how “truly innovative” fintech companies really are. “While we can't be entirely sure yet, what is observable is that ‘float’ control is turning into one of fintech's most important features,” writes Izabella Kaminska, editor of the paper’s Alphaville section. “What this amounts to is taking control of as much customer money up front as possible, and managing it in the style of a bank, albeit without the regulatory oversight. Small surprise fintech services have figured out they too must base their business models on float control if they are to succeed. On the simplest level, if the only thing fintechs are really bringing to the table is
While some former prominent bankers who have joined fintechs “give a glowing account” of their new jobs, lots of others “paint a more nuanced picture where the freedom, adrenalin rush and rapid growth of fintech is
Bracing for Brexit
The European Union Monday proposed stricter oversight and pay rules for investment firms operating in the bloc “in reforms seen as a dry run for relations with the UK’s financial services industry after Brexit. The package of reforms, if agreed with the European Parliament, would
Meanwhile, financial services companies in the U.K. have moved almost £800 billion in "staff, operations and customer funds" to mainland Europe since the Brexit vote, according to consultancy EY. The report “highlights the
New York Times
Taking odds
Financial topics that may come to a head in 2019 highlight the Times’ White Collar Watch column. Regarding Goldman Sachs’ involvement in the 1MDB scandal in Malaysia, the bank “has
separately, “as investors have suffered losses, the questions have increased about whether cryptocurrencies will survive as a viable investment class. Without greater government oversight to curb manipulation, the interest of small investors may well dry up.”
Quotable
“We’re right on the cusp of a
