Banking

HSBC is axing jobs at its UK wealth division following a push to reduce costs through the use of artificial intelligence. The lender is currently consulting to changes it wealth management operations as part of the shake-up, which would impact the hundreds of relationship managers and financial advi

The Financial Conduct Authority's (FCA) chair, Ashley Alder, faced calls to resign at the regulator's first public annual meeting in Edinburgh, as whistleblowers and campaigners challenged its decision to let one of its own non-executive directors investigate how it dealt with Simon Andreisz before

Wirecard whistleblower Pav Gill has launched a new agentic governance platform bringing governance, risk and compliance (GRC) into one system to end reliance on a "patchwork of disconnected point solutions". Confide will give professionals a shared environment in which to set the standard for how GR

By John Ewart, Director and Investment Manager, Aubrey Capital Management Rising incomes, digital identity and mobile finance are changing who wins in emerging market banking, writes John Ewart of Aubrey Capital Management.

LendInvest has announced an overhaul of its Buy-to-Let (BTL) tracker range, removing early repayment charges (EPCs) across all tracker products, reduced initial pay rates and boosted maximum Loan-to-Value (LTV) limits on specialist asset classes to 75%. The move is understood to empower landlords to

Experts have warned that Scotland's financials services industry faces "economic risk" if policy fails to adapt in line with the changing nature of the industry. In a new report by the Scottish Digital Trust Centre of Excellence, it called for Scotland to act quickly to make the most of the increasi

NatWest Group has announced Roisin Donnelly will succeed Lena Wilson as chair of the group performance and remuneration committee from October 1, 2026. Wilson is a senior independent director at the bank. Previously she was the former chief executive at Scottish Enterprise and is the current chair o

Lending to small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) has almost halved as a proportion of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) since 2011, new research from Allica Bank has revealed. The challenger fintech revealed that the UK's 592,500 established SMEs employ around 10.7m people and generate 37% of private

Lloyds Banking Group has poached Coutts Veteran Franklin Asante to strengthen its private banking team. Mr Asante joins Lloyds as head of entrepreneurs at its Mayfair office following more than 18 years at private bank Coutts.

Takeover talks for Monzo have heated up as private equity group Advent International held separate talks about buying a minority stake, alongside other buyout firms, in the challenger fintech, it has been reported. It comes after reports that the board of the bank was in early-stage talks over a sal

Lloyds Banking Group has completed its £1.75bn share buyback programme, purchasing 1,712,662,647 ordinary shares ahead of the year-end 2026 deadline originally set out when the programme was announced. The buyback was managed by Goldman Sachs International between 30 January 2026 and 24 Septem

LendInvest has completed a £265m securitisation backed by 1,240 UK prime buy-to-let mortgages, its eighth transaction under the Mortimer programme and a further source of funding for future lending. The Mortimer 2026-1 transaction, which includes £35m of pre-funding, attracted strong dem

UK Banks have completed their first live transaction with customers using tokenised Sterling deposits, marking a major milestone for payments innovation in the UK. Tokenised deposits are digital representations of traditional commercial bank money. UK Finance, the trade association for the financial

The British Business Bank and NatWest (RBS) are investing alongside HSBC and M&G in venture capital firm Phoenix Court. The investment is the latest move to get more capital into promising young businesses.

Financial services firms have shut down hundreds of thousands of suspected money mule accounts but need to do more as criminals continue to shift dirty money through multiple bank accounts, according to the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). The FCA found in a survey that firms have closed