Lloyds Bank was forced to make an interesting admission yesterday: The boss of Lloyds Banking Group pledged to pull out of tax havens where the bank is not conducting genuine business at its annual meeting on Thursday. Chief executive António Horta-Osório said the 39%-taxpayer owned bank had embarked on a systematic review of “so-called tax havens” after
Read the Rest…

From Global Witness Read more here  

The news that the Cooperative Bank needs more capital is not, as such, news. It’s been known for sometime, but a credit downgrade has highlighted the issue today. What it does pose is a more important question, which is that given the over inflation of the property sector  - which is not going away – and the
Read the Rest…

UBS has put in place new procedures to check that its  customers are declaring tax on their offshore deposits. As Fox News reports: UBS AG (UBS) has begun requiring prospective clients to guarantee funds moved into Swiss accounts from other countries have been reported to tax authorities, a move designed to stem the flow of undeclared money into
Read the Rest…

The FT has noted: The spotlight directed on Thursday at UK Financial Investments went down badly in the Treasury. The attention sparked by the resignation of Jim O’Neil, UKFI chief executive, provided an unwelcome reminder of the UK’s tardiness in returning to private sector hands the banks it bailed out at the height of the 2008
Read the Rest…

The Daily Mail has covered the new TJN report on unitary tax and how it would impact on HSBC and Barclays. And, in the process they’ve got feedback from both banks. According to the Mail: A spokesman said: ‘HSBC paid £6.1billion in tax globally last year, which demonstrates that we do not employ a strategy to
Read the Rest…

Since 2009, HSBC and Barclays bank may well have underpaid UK corporation tax to the tune of £2.6 billion. This figure represents the difference between the tax the banks actually paid and what would have been due had they been taxed under what’s called a unitary taxation system. The data’s in a new report I
Read the Rest…

As the FT notes this morning: Barclays should lower warped pay levels, end the bank’s “entitlement culture” and usher in a spirit of “transparency and candour” if it is to win back trust, according to a long-awaited review of the bank’s flawed culture and values. Anthony Salz, the City lawyer-turned-Rothschild investment banker who on Wednesday published
Read the Rest…

The Guardian business web site tells us a lot about banking this morning:   So, Barclays were bastards, RBS were allegedly conmen, HBOS were incompetent and Lloyds were mugs. And it’s not just here. As the FT notes:   So Deutsche are hiding the truth. Oh, and then add the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists:   So, we’ve now reached the
Read the Rest…