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Tesco gears up to enter global banking sector

October 6, 2010 By foypaul Leave a Comment

Sir Terry Leahy - CEO of Tesco

by Paul Foy

Tesco’s plans to establish a bank could spread far beyond the United Kingdom, Edinburgh Napier News can exclusively reveal. The news comes as Tesco recently announced pre-tax profits of 1.6 billion for the first 6 months of the year.

A source within the team handling the re-branding of Tesco Finance to Tesco Bank, has revealed that if the bank gets a steady foothold in the UK market, it plans to go global with the scheme. The company’s current efforts are based in Edinburgh, and it seems that the city would be seen as an ideal international base of operations for the global expansion.

Our source has described Tesco’s strategy of implementing the infrastructure to “upgrade” from Tesco Finance to Tesco Bank, as “incredibly aggressive”, and went on to say the company was trying to “do in 10 months what would normally take an efficient team 2 years.

“This is the way Tesco conducts itself in business, and is obviously a major factor in how it has become the UK’s biggest supermarket”

The bank has already created around 80 jobs in the city, but this could increase significantly should the proposed global expansion come to fruition. This will come as welcome news to the citizens of Edinburgh, as the city has been one of the worst hit in the fall out of the global banking crisis.

Filed Under: Economy and Business, Life and Society Tagged With: bank, Banking Crisis, Edinburgh, Sir Terry Leahy, Tesco

Major Banks Threaten to Leave the UK Over Financial Sector Shake Up

September 24, 2010 By Niall Lennon Leave a Comment

HSBC are one of the banks who have threatened to leave the UK

A Government inquiry is to examine whether retail and investment banking should be separated. The suggestion of which has prompted large financial institutions, such as HSBC, to threaten to leave the UK.

The proposed reforms are just one of many major changes the Independent Commission on Banking are considering in a bid to reduce ‘market concentration’. What this means for the public is that High Street monopolies such as Lloyds will be most vulnerable.

Many of those within the financial sector feel that this move is a government reaction to the public outcry over bank’s conduct leading up to the financial crisis, a key concern expressed by the electorate during the general election.

Stephen Hester, CEO the Royal Bank of Scotland, told the BBC that he believes that the concerns over banking monopolies was a ‘red herring’.

“In the financial crisis that we had, if you were a narrow bank, you were much more likely to go bust and if you were a small bank, you were much more likely to go bust – so these issues were not at the heart of the crisis,” he said.

Andrew Tyrie, the Conservative chairman of the Commons Treasury Committee, is determined that the review will be clear and precise. Speaking on BBC Radio 4′s Today programme Mr. Tyrie said that the ICB ’have got to be tough and resilient’.

“They’ve got to make sure that they don’t just become a prey to this very powerful interest group that we have in the country, which is the banks, and end up just reporting that we can muddle through.”

Filed Under: Economy and Business, Uncategorized Tagged With: bank, break-ups, government, HSBC

Literature and Laughs come to Glasgow

March 9, 2009 By kirstynsmith Leave a Comment

If you think you could use a good laugh or some relaxation after the miserable start to this year, then Glasgow is the place to be for festival fun this March, boasting both comedy and literature events in the coming weeks.

The Bank of Scotland Aye Write book festival launched this weekend and will continue until the 14th, while Magners Glasgow International Comedy Festival will be tickling the nation’s funny-bone from the 12th – 29th.

Attracting well-known names from each field, the festivals are promising to be bigger and better than previous years. Now in its third year, the comedy festival has snared top acts such as Jimmy Carr, Rob Brydon and Ross Noble. As for the literary side of things, the fourth year of Aye Write boasts Alan Bennett, Alexander McCall Smith and James Frey to be among the numerous authors regaling the crowds.

As the comedy festival is working alongside Homecoming Scotland 2009, which aims to highlight Scotland’s culture and to bring the country into a prolific level on the global scale.

Paul Bush OBE, Chief Operating Officer at EventScotland, the national events agency responsible for Homecoming Scotland is proud that the two events are working together:

“Glasgow’s International Comedy Festival has grown phenomenally over the past seven years to become one of the most well attended and highly acclaimed comedy festivals in the UK. This year the event forms an exciting part of our Homecoming programme and as such will be welcoming performers and audiences from around the world with an affinity for Scotland. I have no doubt that the event will be bigger and better than ever.”

As well as showcasing prolific authors from around the world, joining Aye Write, among many others, are Jackie Kay, Janice Galloway and to fly the flag for Scotland’s aye_write_114x114 homegrown literary talent.

The event also advertises school and family-related talks and activities.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Aye, bank, book, comedy, festival, Glasgow, Homecoming, International, Magners, of, Scotland, Write

Merger Action Group (MAG) opposes bank merge

December 8, 2008 By alextregre Leave a Comment

by: Alexandra Tregre

The Merger Action Group (MAG) has recently challenged the Lloyds TSB takeover of HBOS claiming that such action would be bad for Scotland’s already poor economy.

The Merger Action Group is made up of businessmen, shareholders and bank customers alike and pose a threat to the progress that the Scottish government feels can be accomplished through the rescue of HBOS.

Legal hearings for the case have been moved to begin on the 8th of December in order to accommodate the December 12 vote. MAG assumes that Business Secretary Lord Mandelson based his decision off of recent information that was not available at the time of release. This self-appointed group predicts that the merge will provide an unlawful environment and contradict the interests of fostering employment, competition and the taxpayer’s best interest.

Controversially, a letter was recently written to MAG urging them to come to renounce their protest against the merge. Independent MSP Ms MacDonald added that the letter had threatened MAG’s six key members for legal costs unless they halted their court action. In response, a spokeswoman for the Department of Business asserts, ”The letter was intended to give the appellants a chance to save costs before pursuing their legal challenge further. hbos_682_595752a1 “

“It was neither an ultimatum nor a threat to individual members.”

The body to make the final decision on the rescue of HBOS is the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) which acts as a deciding party. The function of CAT is to hear and resolve appeals involving competition or economic regulatory issues. Additionally, CAT is known for its expertise in law, economics, business and accountancy.

Although the case is to be held in London, it will be conducted by the Scottish law. The outcome is hoped to be decided by Tuesday’s end.

Filed Under: Economy and Business Tagged With: bank, MAG, merge