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Economy
News from around the world
- Barclays may lose control to Gulf investors - The Government is in talks with Barclays after the bank admitted that raising extra capital could trigger a clause that would deliver control to its Middle East investors. Government insiders were last night reeling at the possibility that helping Barclays could see Britain's fourth biggest lender automatically delivered to the Middle East as the result of a little known clause agreed in the bank's October capital raising.
Source: The Telegraph [23rd Jan 2009]
- Visa Revamps Humble Credit Card - In the biggest revamp the humble credit card has seen for many a moon, Visa Europe has announced the trial of an innovative new card designed to make shopping online and over the phone safer for consumers. As the photos conveniently give away, the new card incorporates a 12 digit keypad and display on the back and a very simple system: key in your pin and generate your one-time security code - goodbye terrifying permanent number.
Source: Trusted Reviews [12th Nov 2008]
- Banks to Continue Paying Dividends - U.S. banks getting more than $163 billion from the Treasury Department for new lending are on pace to pay more than half of that sum to their shareholders, with government permission, over the next three years. The government said it was giving banks more money so they could make more loans. Dollars paid to shareholders don't serve that purpose, but Treasury officials say that suspending quarterly dividend payments would have deterred banks from participating in the voluntary program.
Source: Washington Post [30th Oct 2008]
- Your secret £67,300 second mortgage - The Bradford & Bingley bailout isn’t monopoly money. Americans lose no time translating their $700 billion bailout into a $5,000 per family figure, which I’ve heard Brits quote with a shiver in a kind of “there but for the grace of God go we” way. So just for the record, here are the liabilities run up on behalf of the average British household.
Source: The Spectator [29th Sep 2008]
- Hello to the euro, goodbye to the dollar - It's just straws in the wind so far. India's Ministry of Culture announces that foreign tourists can no longer pay in dollars when visiting the Taj Mahal and other heritage sites; they have to pay in good, hard rupees. Iran and Venezuela call for a joint OPEC statement on the weak dollar, and Saudi Arabian Foreign Affairs Minister Saud Al-Faisal warns that any public reference to the dollar's problems could cause the troubled currency to "collapse." Rap star Jay-Z's latest video shows our hero flashing a wad of euros, not dollars.
Source: The Japan Times [29th Nov 2007]
- Banking fears prompt further market jitters - There has been a lot of speculation about Barclays Bank seeking emergency funding from the Bank of England recently as a result of thecredit crunch (with banks unwilling to lend to each other due to sub prime mortgages of people with poor credit records, largely but not just in the USA), which has led to big falls in its share price.
Source: The Herald [8th Nov 2007]
- Carlyle Selling Stake to Abu Dhabi - The Carlyle Group, the District's private-equity giant, announced that it is selling a 7.5 percent share of its general partnership to an investment group owned by the government of Abu Dhabi -- one of a flurry of deals today involving Arab governments and U.S. and British financial assets.
Source: Washington Post [20th Sep 2007]
Links to third-party websites
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