Author: Lily Harper

Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the UK financial regulation myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.The UK government has launched a highly anticipated consultation to bring “buy now, pay later” lenders under the scrutiny of the Financial Conduct Authority and the Consumer Credit Act.The new regulation would allow the finance watchdog to apply rules on affordability, meaning that BNPL providers including Klarna and Clearpay would have to check that shoppers were able to afford repayments before offering a loan.“We promised to take action before the election and now we are delivering,” said Tulip Siddiq, economic secretary…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Banks called for social media companies to “do far more” to protect the public from scammers as new data showed fraud losses continue to be driven via online platforms.New figures from UK Finance, an industry body, showed criminals stole £571mn through both unauthorised and authorised card payment fraud in the first half of this year.This was down 1.5 per cent on the first half of 2023, after a decline in so-called authorised push payment (APP) fraud.However, the industry body highlighted that 72…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.For those who work in the wealth industry, the definition of what makes an ultra-high-net worth individual — UHNW in industry parlance, super-rich to the rest of us — is changing. As the earnings of people who work in sectors such as technology and entrepreneurship has risen, so has “the bar for what it means to be ultra-wealthy”, says David Gibson-Moore, president of consultancy Gulf Analytica in an interview with the FT. Possessing at least $30mn — one established measure — “doesn’t…

De-risking has been a pervasive mantra in the world of UK pension professionals for more than 20 years. Yet it is arguably the most treacherous word in the investment lexicon.Consider, first, what it means in practice. For people in defined contribution pension funds where the size of the pot reflects investment returns and contributions, de-risking implies shifting the balance of the pension as retirement approaches from risky assets such as equities to supposedly safer assets such as gilts.In defined benefit schemes, where pensions are related to pay and length of service, it means adopting so-called “liability-driven investment”. This involves holding…

Europe’s last major cross-border bank merger, cooked up in 2007 by the continent’s banking elite during clandestine meetings in Geneva’s grand Four Seasons Hotel des Bergues, did not end well.But 17 years after Dutch lender ABN Amro was carved up in a three-way transaction that contributed directly to four multibillion-euro bailouts during the financial crisis, European bank executives are contemplating mergers once again.Andrea Orcel, who as a senior investment banker at Merrill Lynch was a key architect of the takeover of ABN Amro by Royal Bank of Scotland, Santander and Fortis, is in the vanguard. UniCredit, the Italian bank of…

Latest news on ETFsVisit our ETF Hub to find out more and to explore our in-depth data and comparison toolsInstitutional adoption of exchange traded funds by asset owners such as pension funds and insurance companies has accelerated in Europe since 2020, according to BlackRock’s analysis of its own iShares ETF ownership.There has been a compound annual growth rate of 29 per cent since 2020 in the value of iShares held by the largest European institutions, said Kirst Kuipers, head of institutional iShares sales Emea and head of official institutions sales Europe.“This is a very fast growth rate,” he said.He said…

Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the Pensions industry myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.Forcing UK pension funds to buy British assets as a way of increasing domestic investment would be a “huge mistake” that could reduce payouts to pensioners, some of the country’s biggest investors have warned.Major retirement schemes are concerned that the government could compel them to pour money into British stocks and infrastructure as part of its plans to revitalise the UK economy, a move that could mean they have to buy lower-quality assets at unattractive prices.The warnings come after pensions minister Emma…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Senior bankers in the UK will be able to receive bonuses three years earlier under plans outlined by a Bank of England regulator as part of moves to adjust post-financial crisis rules in order to support economic growth.Sam Woods, chief executive of the Prudential Regulation Authority, said on Thursday that the UK had become “something of an outlier” in requiring top bankers to defer part of their bonuses for up to eight years. Woods, who is also a BoE deputy governor, told…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.HSBC chief executive Georges Elhedery has announced an overhaul of the bank that would split it into four divisions and create a new geographic set-up separating east from west.The bank will split off its UK and Hong Kong businesses into new units, forming an “eastern markets” business comprising Asia-Pacific and the Middle East and a “western markets” unit including operations in the UK, Europe and the Americas.The reorganisation marks a wide-ranging change at the UK-listed lender, which has also named Pam Kaur,…

Retired banker Rick Phillips likes investing in property. But instead of putting down a deposit for a place he has seen, or investing money into funds listed on the stock market, the cryptocurrency enthusiast chooses to buy digital tokens that represent ownership of physical properties. The Los Angeleno is one of a small number of investors testing the waters in property tokenisation, a nascent way to invest in rental real estate that gives would-be buyers the ability to hold a digital sliver of a bricks-and-mortar building. So far, Phillips has invested $20,000 across several properties. Property tokenisation companies such as Lofty, RealT…