UK bank profits up 62%, but must urgently address low return on equity, says KPMG report

The largest banks in the UK are healthier and be profitable, but must urgently deal the maximum return on equity, they go their separate ways, according to a report by KPMG.


The latest report bench marking the Bank, a paradox Forces, the results of the full year analyzed the five largest banks in the UK - RBS, Lloyds, HSBC, Barclays and Standard Chartered - taxes found their phones before benefits reached EUR 20.6bn 2014 £ 7.9 billion or 62 percent to EUR 12.7 billion in the previous year.


The increase in earnings against the backdrop of a decline in revenues of 12 per cent or £ 18 billion to £ 127.2bn, as banks focus on less risky activities. The rate at which the banks to reduce costs are very different, the cost-income ratios of between 51 percent and 87 percent.


After the consolidation of the economic conditions, the overall cost of the value of loans decreased by 72 percent or 5.2 billion to £ 13.5 billion pounds. Although the level of impaired loans as a percentage of total loans and advances to customers fell by an average of 3.4 percent, twice as high as 1.6 percent even before the crisis. This, with the fact that the capital ratios have the balance sheets of banks means strengthened, that they are now. In a much healthier state


However, the report also shows that the Re-client status, to make mistakes and still be sanctions a big problem because the costs were EUR 38.7bn, accumulated more than 60 percent of its profits since 2011. Travel expenses in the last year it was £ 9.9 billion, only 8 per cent since 2013, with almost half of the cost compared to the actual cost of payment protection insurance and interest rate hedges.


And banks headquartered in the UK are still not on their cost of capital, which in the long run, is an untenable position as a corporate value is eroded. Three of the five banks trading below their book value, and none of the surveyed banks achieved a return on equity of more than 8 percent, compared with an average of 11.6 percent in the year of 2009.


The report gives an overview depending on the bank, as they begin to make their new business plans to different results. For example, the yield on the two state-supported banks can continued to increase since it dropped to three global banks.


Bill Michael, Chief Financial Officer EMA KPMG, said: "Banks are experiencing a change once in a lifetime, as they make the changes in regulations, technology and expectations of society.



 
"At the same time, competition is increasing as new banks Challenger platforms and peer-to-peer offer to lend our customers new ways and deposit services and technology and PayPal electronic purses change to transfer the way of money and they and goods to pay services.


"Targeted banking by country focus on the restructuring of its activities. This investment bank considerable assets challenges around the ring fence their retail and investment banking, which will be mandatory in 2019 the UK as a financial center was largely built by the non-retail banking. If more regulation creates too many restrictions on non-retail banking, industry risks losing its global relevance.


"Some banks are to follow a path of gradual development, while others opt for more radical strategic change. In the short term, banks continue to focus on cost control and investment in technologies to improve services.


"While it is important, the customer comes first, the integration of cultural change and embrace technology, it will be the banks that have a clear and sustainable business model that the best chance of success in the future."


Pamela McIntyre, director of the Bank Audit at KPMG, said:. "Banks are in a transitional phase, as yet to adjust their business plans to the changing regulatory landscape is the long-term prognosis uncertain justice, but our report shows that there is clear evidence of a change.


"Banks have improved their balance sheets and are on track to meet its targets for capital, leverage and liquidity. Improving the unanimous commitment to customer service, is also reflected in the annual reports. But in the end is one of the most important measures of success the return on equity, the unsustainable remains below the cost of capital for banks.


"Cost reduction will continue. But the banks need to use new technologies in order to increase the profitability of its customers and reduce costs. You will be provided access to data that provides information about Silos integration in question, and compliance with the provisions of Basel Committee. We are in a time when chief information officers play an important role in determining the future direction of the banks. "


Among the key findings:


Four of the five banks took the important step of including information on customer satisfaction in their annual reports


of £ 77 billion EUR 2 billion declined assets


Average Common Equity Tier (CET) 1 capital increased to 11.1 percent compared to 9.9 percent in 2013


Combines the receivables from customers decreased by 2 percent to 2.1 billion pounds


Leverage ratios vary from 3.7 to 4.9 percent - defined banks, the ratios of more than 4 percent to meet

Big four Banks of UK's face extra £19bn in fines, analysts predict

Faced four major high street banks in the UK are an additional 19 billion pounds sterling costs and conducting litigation before the end of 2016, and who will pay the price for the mistakes of the past continue, analysts say.Estimates of the rating agency Standard & Poor's, are Barclays, HSBC, Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group. They add up to 42 billion euros in charges in the five years to 2014thMet including other banks, such as the Clydesdale, Yorkshire and the Co-op, and the construction and national Yorkshire company, the total cost of the scandals by 13 financial companies during the same period was £ 48,000,000,000th.

Lloyds, which less than 20%, which is the taxpayer owned, now has higher costs than all its competitors arise because insurance mis-sold payment protection (PPI). Exceeded its PPI bill was £ 12000000000, bringing the total banking regulations for this type of more than £ 14000000000 behavioral problems.The total cost of the PPI scandal reached 26000000000 pounds, S & P estimates PPI is designed to ensure customers against unexpected payment of debts, could be made, but it was also "an important source of income for the business units of the bank."S & P analysts said: "Overall, we believe the worst time provisions PPI is now adopted" They calculate that the provisions for the mis-selling of interest rate products for small businesses. also down.


The agency said: "We believe that some banks still charge from Bank litigation related equipment investment will create in 2015, according to the time, the allegations behavior retailer said passing, assume that 2015, the last great his year for legal expenses . ".Banks hit by fines for manipulating the Libor and exchange markets EUR 3.5tn per day. Barclays, the first person to be convicted for manipulating the Libor in June 2012, not yet on a solution to the currency markets agreed to manage, even if it took a provision of 1.25 billion pounds in preparation for a penalty.


"Looking to the future, we believe that travel costs and litigation are now" a way of life "for the banking sector in the UK, and that some type of load seems unlikely to the largest banks and every two years for the smallest (but every year approximately in the order of PPI) institutions, "said S & P.Start The estimate of £ 19000000000 of the four major banks in the next two years is less than 22 billion pounds for the last two years and evidence from past mistakes might shrink. The additional costs are for compensation for private clients, but continue to visit other issues such as currencies, Libor and money laundering error class for which it fined HSBC 1.2 billion pounds in 2012.


S & P said banks have tried to get around to large bills on the future of their current treatment of customers and the development of financial markets. He said: "The recent examples of changes are more important and measurement of behavioral problems in the banking risk, the banks concentrate on providing the proof that they are doing is right for the customer, and changed sales practices, the less aggressive and the short-term in nature. In addition, the most important security forces, which are often hired by regulators now generally members of the Executive Committee and report directly to the CEOs of banks. "

Origin, Development, and Regulation - The US Banking System

Banks are among the oldest in the history of the economy, the Inter Bank of New York, for example, was founded in 1784 and as had recently been renamed The Bank of New York Mellon in 2009. The banking system's 225th anniversary one of the oldest, largest and most important of our industries. Most American adults are often dealing with banks, on a fairly regular basis. But the banks and the banks seem rather mysterious. What do banks do? Why do they have long been an integral part of our economy? Therefore, as in the financial crisis that began in 2007, no banks, sometimes run into difficulties and serious problems for the country?

Banks have two important economic functions. First, a payment system is created and a modern economy can not function well without an effective payment. We make most of our payments by check, slide the used by banks or credit cards with them and paying bills through online banking. Most of the money supply of the country is actually money from the bank; the rest of the currency by the government, namely the Federal Reserve notes and coins "legal" issued. We have confidence in bank money, because we will change it to the bank or legal ATM. Banks are obliged to keep legal monetary reserves to make this exchange, when we ask.

The second main feature of banks is financial intermediation, loan or invest the money deposited with them or to create credit to businesses, households and governments. This is the business side of the Bank. Most banks are profit with shareholders that is required to start and maintain provide a bank activity capital. Banks make their profits and cover their costs by charging borrowers more for loans than to pay to have the depositors money in the bank. The mediation role of the banks is very important because it helped fund the many generations of entrepreneurs who built the US economy and ordinary shops to keep from year to year. But it is an inherently risky business. If the borrower to repay the loan with interest? What happens if the borrower for the loan? What happens to the banking system and the economy if a large number of borrowers can not or will not repay their loans? And if not to keep them in the pursuit of profit, the banks stocks and equity in accordance with its own stability?

PNC Joins Banks Not Financing Mountaintop Coal Removal

A New Tack in the War on Mining Mountains - Last week, with little fanfare, PNC Financial, seventh largest bank, showed a significant strategic change. The bank said it would finance coal mining companies that follow the stop mountaintop coal removal in Appalachia, a devastating environmental practice which has attracted a lot of resistance.This was an important decision for the PNC, the one of the largest financial companies in the mountain mining of coal, which, committed to expose coal under them and dumping dirt was valleys and rivers is from the tips, the organization Earthjustice describes environmental law as " Steroid mining open pit. "

Deciding PNC comes after environmental groups put intense pressure on Wall Street banks to stop financing such practices. PNC was a bulwark; Bank of America, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Credit Suisse and others have even had the parties from the top of the mountain in the extraction of coal distances. GE Capital and UBS seem the only major financial institutions in the country is always willing to lend money to companies involved in the mining mountain, and even if these activities.


A UBS spokesman said the company had its funding reduced considerably from top removal coal mining, according to a report in 2014 to declare by the company, how the company approaches this fundraising event, called MTR released. "The mining companies who rely on MTR as part of their production also assess the extent to rely on MTR mining for their income opportunities, and UBS must be satisfied that the client is committed to reduce the time of their exposure to this form of mining. Each involved potential transaction with a company in MTR depends entirely on whether the environmental and social performance of the company met our scope of environmental and social risks and the associated processes. "Environmentalists have fought in recent years to convince large investors from stocks of companies of fossil fuel dump, but it can only to a more effective approach taken: Cut the Corporate Finance.One thing for large investors such as the Rockefeller family, or delivery of Stanford University to withdraw from fossil fuels companies. The result is perhaps an action of slightly lower price for major oil players.


But there is another country, if the banks decide independently or together, effectively closes the financing of projects, the significant capital requirements. Its effect is to kill the company.It is surprising that social activists have not tried to mount several campaigns against before financing sources.Trying to convince large investors from selling their shares in the possession of fossil fuels companies have activists often adopted a strategy copy in the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. At Harvard, for example, a meeting is planned next month and famous alumni like actress Natalie Portman and director Darren Aronofsky has recently calling for a letter, university endowments, signed to sell their interests in fossil fuels companies. "While we can not bankrupt the oil companies, they can start political bankruptcy that dominate their ability to our political life more difficult," says the letter. "The transfer is effective."
In truth, however, divestment is not really effective."This means that tobacco companies snuff," it his business unless you fire a low snuff now grown, and close all plants, we will continue our shares to sell, "wrote Scott Wisor, Director and Associate Professor Center for Global Study Ethics , University of Birmingham in the UK. "Of course it would be nice if the tobacco companies had to close their doors because people stopped smoking (with the support of Effective public policies). But no leader of the tobacco companies is to close the store, simply because investors do well, they do not buy your business. "Secondly, if funding for capital-intensive projects such as mining declined, the effect can be significant."To proclaim the threat of the share price, that 80 percent of the reserves are not drawn to exponentially larger than the smaller threat some universities and churches, their shares in these companies to sell" Wisor wrote.Found itself in the high-profile efforts against apartheid in the 1980s, a pioneering study of university professors from the University of Michigan and the University of California, Los Angeles, missing results.


"We found no support for the common perception - and often violent rhetoric in the financial media - that the shareholders adversely affected boycott against apartheid and the financial sector: The announcement of the legislative pressure or shareholder had no discernible effect on the valuation of banks and companies offices in South Africa or the South African financial markets ", according to the study." One explanation could be that the actions and boycott operations mainly redistributed from "socially responsible" the indifferent and private investors. "Fast forward to now: instead of relying only on the sale of fossil fuels and Rainforest Action Team Earth Quaker Action Network, two environmental groups, decided to set his sights on the banks like PNC last year after successful battles against companies like JPMorgan."In our first meeting with the PNC, we do not use them or the problem seriously," George Lakey, a retired teacher, who was arrested twice during the campaign. "We have evidence of the foreseen water poisoned by Appalachian Mountain top removal, and brought them face to face with this practice affected residents faced. We had to take direct action in order to see the light."Because banks like PNC has more at stake than a specific sector and a wider variety of components of the coal enterprises, the militants were able to convince corporate leaders.


"The banks do not want to be associated with a dangerous practice as abominable removing the top of the mountain in connection, there is a consensus in the financial industry that these practices are not acceptable," said Rainforest Action Network. "In practice, this means that the company to operate the day more difficulties in obtaining financing and to develop, have in the future."For his part, said the PNC that due to "environmental and health risks as well as our willingness to take risks," the mountaintop removal exposure funding was significantly reduced over time. After its latest Corporate Responsibility Report that exposure less than a quarter of 1 percent of the total funding commitments. (This is probably the decision easier for the bank.)Under the new policy, the PNC has not expand credit to individual projects or mountain removal coal producer with 25 percent or more of their production of these mines.


Other sources of funding are likely to arise. But the process of finding these sources will add costs and increase the cost of financing, so that to move up to a mountain becoming less defensible.The real question is whether other social activists observed, and what could be their next target.

Online Internet Banking Advantages and Risks

Online banking is one of the services that can provide your financial institution. Attracting more people to Internet-only banks rely as their only way to do business. Before accepting access to the online account before you have an account with a bank over the Internet, you must be familiar with the risks and the benefits of online banking.
Identity theft
A financial institution can use security measures with the latest technologies to protect your data, but if you have an online account, your information at risk from hackers, according to the article entitled "Online Banking - pros and cons" News Finance published. Computer criminals are still working on existing security systems to get around and see if your financial accounts to be kept on a server of the bank could be easy prey, are then stolen. All your personal information, including your social security number that is associated with your account the risk associated.


Phishing
Phishing is when a criminal sends emails to people with fake links to try these people click on links and disclose your personal information, according to the article "online banking safe", published by readiness of the team US Computer Emergency. When setting up an online bank account, you can get one of these emails. Clicking on the wrong link, which will take place at a site that looks and acts like your bank login page. The site was actually created to steal your login information. A few minutes after your login information, the hacker can log into your account and start to steal your money and personal information.
Access
With online banking, you can access your account 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. You can pay your bills online with your online account. You can transfer funds, changing settings in your personal account and can view the updated statements, whenever you want.Online Services
You can online services with your online banking account that you might not be able to otherwise access access to financial Web. You can apply for loans online with your bank, ask for an increase in its credit limit and the information for the various investment products of your bank without leaving home offered.