The leader of Northern Ireland’s main unionist party has called for “further clarification, reworking and change” to the new post-Brexit trade deal for the region agreed by London and Brussels after months of wrangling. In his most detailed assessment of the Windsor framework since it was unveiled last month, Democratic Unionist Party head Sir Jeffrey
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Banks fail. When they do, those who stand to lose scream for a state rescue. If the threatened costs are big enough, they will succeed. This is how, crisis by crisis, we have created a banking sector that is in theory private, but in practice a ward of the state. The latter in turn attempts
A violent move in government bond markets sparked by the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank has upended one of the most popular hedge fund trades of recent years. The bank’s failure on Friday sparked concerns that the US Federal Reserve may need to shy away from aggressive rises in interest rates to avoid putting the
The UK government is planning to eliminate import tariffs on palm oil from Malaysia, a product blamed for widespread deforestation, as the price of joining an Asia-Pacific trade deal, according to people involved in the talks, prompting outrage from green campaigners. Britain is finalising entry terms to the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), an
The writer is a former chair of the US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and a senior fellow at the Center for Financial Stability Preventing “systemic risk” was repeatedly used as a rationale for bailing out Wall Street during the 2008 financial crisis. The 2010 Dodd-Frank Act was supposed to have fixed all of that by strengthening
Britishvolt began planning for a possible insolvency as early as last summer, according to newly released documents that show the battery start-up owed up to £160mn to unsecured creditors when it collapsed in January. EY — which advised the battery group on its business strategy — said it expected to rack up £3.5mn in fees
To south-east Asia, with its EU-dwarfing population, its aspirations beyond middle-income, its clout as a hinge region in the tussle between the US and China. How to explain to someone here the almost subatomic littleness of the main story in the UK? You see, we have this sports presenter. And he tweeted something noble but
Credit Suisse said it had identified “material weaknesses” in its internal controls over financial reporting, the latest blow to a bank battling to revive its fortunes. In its annual report on Tuesday, Credit Suisse said “management did not design and maintain an effective risk assessment process to identify and analyse the risk of material misstatements
US inflation is expected to remain hot enough to further complicate the path forward for the Federal Reserve as it contends with three bank failures and broader concerns about financial stability. The consumer price index is forecast to have risen 6 per cent year on year in February, according to a consensus estimate compiled by
Jeremy Hunt will use Wednesday’s Budget to lift pension allowances for higher earners in an effort to discourage early retirement and get them to extend their careers into later life. The UK chancellor is set to increase the £40,000 cap on tax-free annual pension contributions — frozen for the past nine years — to £60,000.
Academia isn’t exactly famous for churning out timely papers of practical value. But occasionally a gem emerges from the scholastic grind at the perfect moment. One such effort has landed in FTAV’s SVB-bloated inbox today. The abstract from five researchers at the University of Southern California, Northwestern University, Columbia University, Stanford University and NBER (our
Craig Coben is a former global head of equity capital markets at Bank of America and now a managing director at Seda Experts, an expert witness firm specialising in financial services. Bankocalypse postponed? While equity and unsecured creditors will lose their money and top management will lose their jobs, Silicon Valley Bank’s demise shows that
The writer is managing partner and head of research at Axiom Alternative Investments Of all the ways a bank can die, the route pursued by Silicon Valley Bank on the way to implosion appears to have been one of the most reckless. Banks exist to take and manage liquidity, interest rate and credit risks. It
After years of hiding from public sight, a hard-partying Englishman alleged to be central to the Wirecard fraud is about to be forced into the limelight by a criminal case in Singapore. James Henry O’Sullivan’s name is already familiar from the trial of former Wirecard executives taking place on the other side of the world.
Shares of Japan’s biggest banks dropped sharply on Tuesday as global markets reacted to a US banking sector sell-off and uncertainty over interest rates in the wake of the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank. Traders in Tokyo said they were expecting a second day of massive equity market support from the Bank of Japan to
TikTok has been accused of mishandling allegations of sexual misconduct and harassment against a senior manager in London, highlighting longstanding concerns about the working culture at the fast-growing social media platform. Steve Ware, former head of TikTok’s UK ecommerce studio operations, made inappropriate sexual comments and advances to young female staff members and clients, including
Large US banks are being inundated with requests from customers trying to transfer funds from smaller lenders, as the failure of Silicon Valley Bank results in what executives say is the biggest movement of deposits in more than a decade. JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and other large financial institutions are trying to accommodate customers wanting to
China will resume the issuance of tourist visas to foreigners, as the government removes one of the final remnants of its three-year closure under zero-Covid. The Chinese embassy in Washington said that in addition to processing new visas from Wednesday, existing visas from before March 2020, when it closed its borders due to the pandemic,
Just hours after Wall Street opened for trading on Friday morning, US regulators had seized control of Silicon Valley Bank, which had imploded under the strain of depositors pulling out their money en masse. What at first seemed like the failure of a one-of-its-kind lender with deep ties to the technology industry quickly appeared as
Venture capital firms are working on a long-shot plan to preserve parts of Silicon Valley Bank so it can keep serving clients in the technology sector, according to people briefed on the effort. Since late last week a group of more than a dozen VC firms have been in talks about how to enable SVB
Ken Griffin, founder of Citadel hedge fund, says the US central bank’s rescue package for Silicon Valley Bank shows that American capitalism is “breaking down before our eyes”. Griffin told the Financial Times that US taxpayers should not have to bail out institutional investors, following the decision by the US Federal Reserve to intervene to