Tag Archives: barclays

Chris White

Opinion: Don’t complain – walk out!

By Chris White | Mon 3rd September 2012 - 12:55 pm

The story of UK banks is the one that just keeps on giving.

While we may be shocked by the LIBOR scandal (even though – let’s face it – we don’t really understand whether we have lost out or benefitted by the bankers’ manipulations) and stand aghast at various episodes of mis-selling and worse, what really matters to you and me is the service provided, well, to you and me.

If I complain about a bank will anything actually happen? Is there actually anyone there to complain to? Or someone who actually gives a damn?

All of us grumble to each other but …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged and | 11 Comments
Stephen Tall

Barclays and the Bank of England: BAD rate-rigging and GOOD rate-rigging

By Stephen Tall | Wed 4th July 2012 - 11:15 am

The Barclays rate-rigging scandal has conflated a number of issues — Bob Diamond’s bonus, ‘casino’ banking, failed regulators — making it hard to get behind the media’s shouty headlines to understand the issues which should really concern us. Here’s my brief show-your-working attempt, starting with what Barclays.

What Barclays did right: ‘fess up

LIBOR (London Inter Bank Offered Rate) is the rate at which banks in London lend money to each other for the short-term. It’s used as a proxy measure of market confidence in individual banks, as well as a benchmark for setting mortgage interest rates.

Barclays has admitted filing misleading …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , and | 15 Comments
The Voice

++ Barclays chief executive Bob Diamond quits

By The Voice | Tue 3rd July 2012 - 7:53 am

Yesterday Nick Clegg called for more resignations at Barclays in the wake of the rate-rigging scandal. Well, he’s just got his wish in part fulfilled, with the news that chief executive Bob Diamond is falling on his sword (or was he pushed?). Here’s how the BBC reports it:

Barclays chief executive Bob Diamond has resigned with immediate effect.

The move follows the resignation of chairman Marcus Agius and comes less than a week after the bank was fined a record amount for trying to manipulate inter-bank lending rates.

Mr Diamond said he was stepping down because the external pressure on Barclays

…

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Posted in News | Also tagged , and | 28 Comments
Stephen Tall

Lib Dem peer reveals online Barclays tax documents

By Stephen Tall | Thu 26th March 2009 - 10:57 pm

Here’s how The Guardian reports it:

Liberal Democrat spokesman Lord Oakeshott used parliamentary privilege today to blow a hole in a gag order obtained by Barclays Bank over its tax avoidance scheme. The documents detailing the schemes, previously leaked to the Lib-Dems, were now available on Wikileaks and other websites, he told a Lords debate on tax avoidance.

Barclays had previously obtained a high court injunction banning the Guardian and other papers from disclosing that the documents were publicly available on Wikileaks. The gag order, provided by Mr Justice Blake, also forced the Guardian to remove copies of the documents from

…

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Posted in News and Parliament | Also tagged , and | 9 Comments
The Voice

CommentIsLinked@LDV: Nick Clegg – Banks’ business is taxpayers’ business

By The Voice | Fri 20th March 2009 - 8:37 am

Yesterday The Guardian ran a piece from Nick Clegg on Barclays and its attempts to keep secret details of how it goes about reducing the amount of tax it pays:

Yesterday Barclays may have won on a point of law. But it cannot run away from the wider point of principle: now our whole banking system relies on the support of British taxpayers, how the banks run their business is our business, too.

So long as these banks are sustained by explicit or implicit Treasury guarantees, they have no right to deprive the Treasury of money by running circles round the taxman.

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Posted in LibLink | Also tagged and | 13 Comments
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