The pound fell as the MPC’s minutes indicated that UK interest rates were unlikely to rise from their record low 0.5 percent this year and flagged a greater chance of the BoE opting instead for more quantitative easing (QE).
It was the first time since October last year that the MPC had discussed QE.
The minutes showed a 7-2 vote to keep rates on hold at 0.5 percent. As expected, new MPC member Ben Broadbent chose to vote with the majority and did not follow the lead of his predecessor, Andrew Sentance, in calling for higher rates.
Most members judged that current growth weakness was likely to last longer than previously thought, with the risks of "adverse shocks on demand" from the euro zone debt crisis.
MPC member Paul Fisher flagged the chances of more QE, saying that Britain's economic recovery remains fragile and could require more "money printing" if deflation becomes a risk.
And fellow MPC member Adam Posen again called for an immediate extra 50 billion pounds of quantitative easing to be added to the 200 billion already produced.
The two members who voted for an increase in the rate, Spencer Dale, the BoE chief economist, and fellow MPC member Martin Weale, accepted that forward-looking data on growth had been weak over the past month.
However, experts say another round of QE is unlikely to be needed over the short-term.
"Given the subsequent inflationary performance, an awful lot of bad news will be required before more QE becomes a serious contender," said Stuart Green at HSBC.
And Simon Ward, Henderson's chief economist, described the prospect of more inflation-boosting QE as "dangerous".
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( 3 / 248 )A damning report by the Financial Services Authority (FSA), published yesterday, indicates that banks in the City of London are showing a brazen disregard for the rules against money laundering and are welcoming questionable clients on the basis that allegations of corruption had not yet resulted in a criminal conviction.
In its paper, Banks’ management of high money-laundering risk situations, the regulator says that it found serious weaknesses in regards to a number of firms including its review of anti-money laundering risk-management.
The FSA says that a number of banks appeared unwilling to turn away, or exit, very profitable business relationships when there appeared to be an unacceptable risk of handling the proceeds of crime.
It says: “Around a third of banks, including the private banking arms of some major banking groups, appeared willing to accept very high risk levels of money-laundering risk if the immediate reputational and regulatory risk was acceptable.”
Other concerns included some banks’ anti-money laundering risk-assessment frameworks not being robust enough; some banks failing to put significant safeguards in place to mitigate relationship managers having a conflict of interest and a third of banks’ customer due-diligence was found to be inadequate.
It also found that some banks were unable to give them an overview of their high risk and politically exposed person (PEP) customers easily. The FSA says nearly half the banks in its sample failed to review high risk or PEP relationships regularly.
Robert Palmer of campaigners Global Witness said the FSA's warts-and-all report was commendably candid — far more so than comparable reports elsewhere in the world — but also raised questions as to the regulator's effectiveness. "If I was the FSA I would be embarrassed that the banks they are supposed to regulate have such a disregard for regulations that have the force of law," he said.
Defending the FSA's position, Tracey McDermott, acting head of financial crime, said: "It is not a pretty picture. Obviously, we would have preferred it if there was better compliance ... The banks are just not taking the rules seriously enough."
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( 3 / 172 )Data from the Office for National Statistics (ONC) published yesterday showed that public sector net borrowing fell last month to £15.156 bn from £16.463 bn in May last year, helped by higher indirect taxes such as VAT.
However, doubts remain over whether Chancellor George Osborne can meet his reduction goal this year, amid weaker-than-forecast growth and resistance to the cuts from the unions. In the first two months of 2011, the deficit widened by £1.5 bn from a year earlier to 27.4 billion pounds.
"That still leaves progress during the full year so far as disappointing," said Investec economist Philip Shaw. It's early days, but we would be hoping to see more positive effects of the spending cuts coming through in the figures."
The Government is one year into a five-year plan to largely eliminate the country's budget deficit. However, the opposition has accused the government of trying to reduce the deficit too quickly, thereby hurting the country's fragile economic recovery.
However, Prime Minister David Cameron’s response to Labour’s calls to slow the pace cuts was that their “plan B would stand for bankruptcy.”
But Mr Cameron’s insistence on keeping to the Government’s plan, which will squeeze the public sector, is setting him on a collision course with the unions. Around 750,000 public-sector workers are set to take part in a national strike on June 30 to protest against government plans to curb their pension rights.
The independent Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts that public borrowing, excluding financial sector interventions, will total £122 bn during the current 2011/12 tax year, more than £20 bn lower than the £143.189 bn borrowed in the previous year. This is equivalent to a budget deficit of 9.58 per cent of GDP, down from 11.13 per cent in 2009/10.
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( 2.9 / 187 )According to the monthly Markit Index, household finances in the UK are deteriorating at their fastest rate since 2009, as more people are borrowing or dipping into their savings to finance the rising cost of living.
June's survey indicated that 36 per cent of households saw their finances worsen since the previous month. As a result, the headline Markit Index fell from 36.0 in May to 35.1 in June.
And the trend looks set to continue, as the survey also showed that half of households expect their finances to deteriorate over the coming year, with only 19 per cent anticipating an amelioration in the situation.
“It may be summertime but the living is far from easy,” said Tim Moore, senior economist at Markit. “The decline in the index pours cold water on the tentative signs of improvement.”
According to the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), the independent fiscal watchdog, households will borrow more to maintain their living standards over the next four years.
By 2015, debt as a proportion of income will have jumped by 15 percentage points to 175 per cent, passing even 2007’s record 173 per cent level, the OBR predicts.
And research from the UK Institute for Fiscal Studies found that households face the biggest drop in real incomes for 30 years. They said that stagnant wages, increased taxes and high inflation cost the typical family more than £500 in lost real income over the past year.
The poor have suffered most from inflation in essentials such as food and energy costs and, apart from the very wealthy, have also lost most, proportionately, from tax and benefit reforms.
In his Mansion House speech, the Governor of the Bank of England, Sir Mervyn King, made the biblical allusion that the nation was in the middle of "seven lean years". The figures reflect that the UK may be in the grip of a true “Age of Austerity.”
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( 3.1 / 168 )The controversial decision to increase the state pension age to 66 and four months has been agreed on by Government ministers. However, due to a backlash of criticism the move has been postponed until 2024, instead of 2020, as originally planned.
In exchange for a delay to the changes being introduced, a higher pension age was finally agreed on. It is hoped that the delay will soften the blow of a sharp rise to the retirement age, allowing women in their 50s time to make plans for alternative retirement savings.
With retirement put back by as much as two years, it was estimated that for over 330,000 women who were born between December 1953 and October 1954, the increase to the retirement age would have had the biggest impact on their retirement plans as they would have faced the steepest rise in their pension age.
There has been wide acceptance that changes must be made to the state pension age due to the fact that life expectancy is rising and the burden it will have on the tax payer. However, many eyebrows have been raised at the rate at which it is rising.
Ros Altmann, the director general of Saga, said: “We have been inundated with letters and emails from women affected by these unfair changes and we believe that the Government's timetable for raising the state pension age should be adjusted.
“Some even said it feels as if the Government has gone into their bank account and robbed them of £10,000.”
Conservative Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith and Liberal Democrat Pensions Minister Steve Webb are understood to be “sympathetic” to the arguments.
A report published today by the charity Age UK says a worrying number of women are confused by the reforms. When asked when they will get their state pension, one in five women in their early fifties said the answer is 60.
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