Business Comment

Hamish McRae: We need an exit strategy from the Bank of England's costly policies

Economic Life

Inside Business Comment

David Prosser: China cannot afford to be vengeful

Friday, 10 July 2009

Outlook China must be careful as the fall-out from the collapse of the deal between Rio Tinto and Chinalco continues to rain down, not least on those still trying to negotiate on a market price for iron ore.

David Prosser: An idea worth pinching

Friday, 10 July 2009

Outlook This should be fun. Financial journalists have always compared notes with each other on the companies about which they receive the greatest number of complaints – the same names crop up with remarkable consistency. Now the Financial Services Authority is to publish official data on complaints, with league tables showing which of the companies it polices attract most flak. There's one ranking that financial services companies won't want to top.

David Prosser: Why this 125% mortgage is welcome

Friday, 10 July 2009

Outlook Good for Nationwide Building Society, both for having the nous to see that there is a part of the housing market that could benefit from being offered 125 per cent loan-to-value deals, and for having the nerve to market such products, which could see the mutual end up on the wrong end of some critical headlines.

Sean O'Grady: Bank looks to be backing a feeble recovery

Thursday, 9 July 2009

Do they know something we don’t? If so, it ought to be good news. The Bank of England kept interest rates at 0.5per cent today, and didn’t take up the option of expanding its “quantitative easing” programme- “printing money”.

David Prosser: Will Darling's plan pass the litmus test?

Thursday, 9 July 2009

Outlook Once you have finished arguing the toss over who has snubbed who, the real test of the White Paper on the reform of banking regulation, finally unveiled yesterday, is a pretty simple one. Will the changes it proposes mean we can be confident about not having to endure another financial crisis like the one we have just been through? The answer to that question – annoying and predictable though it may be – is that we don't yet know. And that's because, for all the technical detail and new ideas published yesterday, we have yet to hear precisely what this Government intends to do with the two most crucial aspects of future regulation.

Angela Knight: Reforms risk crippling Britain's financial system

Thursday, 9 July 2009

First, let me say I am not surprised banking is in the public eye, but much that the Government talked about yesterday is already under way.

David Prosser: Google's next move flies in the Windows

Thursday, 9 July 2009

Outlook Don't be counting too many chickens just yet, but a credible threat to the near-total dominance of Microsoft may have emerged yesterday. Google knows a thing or two about dominance, of course, and now it plans to take on Microsoft in its core market, providing the operating systems that make computers work.

Ben Chu: Is the wrong man in charge of RBS?

Thursday, 9 July 2009

Alistair Darling yesterday defended Stephen Hester's £9.6m bonus package at Royal Bank of Scotland on the grounds that, if the chief executive meets his performance targets, the taxpayer's stake in the business will have grown in value.

Ben Chu: The banking cuckoo in the nest

Thursday, 9 July 2009

The banking lobby, in response to the Government's latest White Paper, has mobilised the usual battalions. Screw the regulatory clamp down too hard, they say, and you'll kill the City of London goose which lays the golden eggs.

David Prosser: EU plans risk driving away hedge funds

Wednesday, 8 July 2009

Outlook Lord Myners didn't waste any time yesterday. Less than 24 hours after former Man Group boss Stanley Fink had called for the Government to defend London's status as one of the world's primary centres for the hedge fund industry, the minister for the City went on the attack. He accused the European Union, which is consulting on a draft directive on hedge fund regulation, of "making political capital" with a crackdown on the sector that is "bordering on a weak form of protectionism".

More business comment: