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... Meanwhile, it has emerged that Britain failed to secure the backing of any of the 27 countries for its case that trade talks should start early in the two years of negotiations allowed by article 50 of the Lisbon treaty. The position will be announced at a Brussels summit on 29 April. Despite a recent whistlestop tour of EU capitals by the Brexit secretary, David Davis, diplomats concluded unanimously that the European commission was right to block any talks about a future comprehensive trade deal until the UK agrees to settle its divorce bill – which some estimate could...

Lloyds ​Banking Group has chosen Germany as its European base after Brexit and aims to apply for a licence in the country in a matter of months. It is understood that Lloyds has made a final decision to turn its Berlin branch into a subsidiary, to ensure it has a hub inside the European Union once the UK leaves.

Bank accused of discrimination after telling Muslims they would escape overdraft charge of up to £80 a month Lloyds Bank has been accused of religious discrimination after offering free overdraft accounts to Muslims. The bank sent customers a booklet this month explaining new charges. While many will have to pay up to £80 a month if they go into the red, Muslims were told they would escape the charges. The document said: “We are removing the monthly overdraft management fee of £6 from our Islamic Account, Islamic Student Account and Islamic Graduate Account. So, if you use an unplanned overdraft...

Lloyd’s of London Pulls Deposits From Banks on Debt Crisis Sept. 21 -- Lloyd’s of London, concerned European governments may be unable to support lenders in a worsening debt crisis, has pulled deposits in some peripheral economies as the European Central Bank provided dollars to one euro-area institution.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Goldman Sachs Group Inc was involved as an underwriter and an investor in Lloyds Banking Group Plc's 23.5 billion pound (US$36.1 billion) refinancing in late 2009, the Financial Times said on Thursday, citing four people involved in the capital raising. Goldman demanded last-minute changes to the structure of the transaction, the newspaper said, citing the people. This had the effect of benefiting Goldman's position as a bond investor, the newspaper said. Bankers at Goldman say the company's ethical walls bar underwriters from knowing how its proprietary traders invest, the newspaper said. Goldman was hit last Friday...

LLOYDS Banking Group is set to reveal £13 billion worth of write-offs on bad debts when it releases results for the first six months of 2009, it was reported yesterday. When group chief executive Eric Daniels unveils the interim results in August, the bank will report another huge hit on its commercial property, business and mortgage loans, despite suggestions that the worst of the recession is over. Analysts at UBS calculated the bank will see pre-tax losses of more than £6bn for the first half of the year alone. Total write-offs at Lloyds – 43 per cent owned by the...

Eric Daniels and Sir Victor Blank took Britain’s safest bank and turned it into a basketcase – and left the taxpayer on the hook tooEric Daniels’s facade slipped only for a moment, and then when it was least expected. At a low-key speech to a breakfast organised by a Jewish charity last Monday, the American chief executive of Lloyds Banking Group was clearly fighting back tears as he spoke in his distinctive, gravelly drawl. Daniels, 57, renowned for his Buddha-like calm, was under extreme pressure. He was in the middle of a desperate fight to stop the government taking control...

Vienna "Londonistan" is the nickname given to the UK capitol in 1995 by France's counterterrorism service, partly out of frustration over the safe haven that the city offers to radical Islamist groups that have been exiled from their home countries and/or other EU nations. The year 2009 began with a story that offers a whole new dimension as to how that nickname fits better than most of us would have imagined. This past week one of the major UK banks, Lloyds TBS Group, paid $350 million to New York State and U.S. Federal authorities in an out-of-court settlement. The fine...

Ten international banks, including British-based Lloyds laundered "billions of dollars" for Iran through New York banks, Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau announced Friday. According to a report in the New York Daily News, the scheme helped Iran turn its dirty money into greenbacks, which it could then use to buy goods prohibited by international sanctions.

Interpal the controversial UK-based Palestinian charity, is facing closure after Lloyds TSB instructed the Islamic Bank of Britain to shut its bank account. Interpal (pictured), which is on a list of banned organisations in the US because of suspected links with terrorists, is also under investigation by the UK Charity Commission for the third time. The first two investigations by the Commission, which concluded in 1996 and 2003, found no evidence of any wrongdoing by the charity. The latest one, which opened in December 2006, is examining fresh concerns about the potential for inappropriate links between the charity and terrorist...

This has the potential to not only damage Interpal but also to affect community relations and cohesion in Britain," he said. "It is, at the very least, an example of the utter lack of respect faced by the Muslim community from some hostile quarters in this country." Hewitt added that IBB had offered its total support but is "apparently powerless, throwing into question the autonomy of Britan's burgeoing Islamic finance sector". In a further statement on the charity's website this week, Interpal said the Islamic Bank "remains threatened by Lloyds' demands and thus faces closure itself".

Excerpt- For Scotland's oldest bank, it was the suddenness of its rout that stunned. That and the silence at the top. That and the invisibility of leadership. That and the short-selling frenzy that descended on HBOS shares yesterday, like vultures on a corpse. This was the blackest day in Scottish banking. An appalling day of shock, confusion and disbelief. Many this morning will still be aghast at the speed of the bank's share collapse. Anger and a reckoning will come later. Today, the fate of HBOS, the savings of its 22 million customers, the prospects for its 72,000 staff and...

A man who chose "Lloyds is pants" as his telephone banking password said he found it had been changed by a member of staff to "no it's not".Steve Jetley, from Shrewsbury, said he chose the password after falling out with Lloyds TSB over insurance that came free with an account. He said he was then banned from changing it back or to another password of "Barclays is better".

Lloyd's of London warned yesterday that an absence last year of natural disasters or man-made accidents was putting pressure on firms to reduce premiums in 2008. The world's oldest and biggest insurance market said that though the lack of major disasters had allowed firms to push up profits 5% in 2007, underwriting margins were being squeezed. Almost half of the 320-year-old market's business was conducted in the US last year. It is a major insurer of the Florida seaboard and oil rigs in the gulf of Mexico. In 2005, a series of natural disasters culminated in Hurricane Katrina clattering into...

Steve Wynn's Bad Dream Vegas mogul sues Lloyd's over $54 million damaged Picasso claim JANUARY 11--Months after he accidentally poked a hole in a Picasso painting, casino magnate Steve Wynn today sued Lloyd's of London for failing to pay off a $54 million insurance claim. Wynn, who purchased the painting "Le Reve" for $48.4 million in 1997, contends that the painting was worth $139 million when, on September 30, he "accidentally placed a tear" in it while showing the work (pictured at right) to friends visiting his Las Vegas office. According to Wynn's U.S. District Court complaint, a copy of...

LONDON (AFP) - Billionaire United States investor Warren Buffett offered reassurance to thousands of Lloyds of London names over his company's deal to take on pre-1993 claims. In a deal announced Friday, a unit of Berkshire Hathaway, his investment company, will provide 7 billion dollars (5.5 billion euros) reinsurance cover to Equitas, the company set up to manage the liabilities of policies underwritten by 34,000 individual investors, or "names". Berkshire Hathaway unit National Indemnity Co will also take over the staff and management of Equitas, set up after Lloyds faced a crisis following the loss of eight billion pounds between...

DIPLOMATS who received money from the United Nations’ discredited oil-for-food programme in Iraq were "parasites" profiting from the misery of an impoverished nation, the country’s human rights minister claimed yesterday. Bakhtiar Amin said those responsible should be brought to justice and the money repaid to the Iraqi people. "It shows that some so-called dignitaries had not an iota of shame in their bones, no conscience and no morals," he said. "They profited as parasites on the misery of an impoverished nation." The £32 billion oil-for-food programme, which ran from December 1996 to November 2003, allowed Saddam Hussein’s government to sell...

Cotonou - The voice and data recorders from a Boeing 727 that crashed in the west African state of Benin on Christmas Day have been sent to France for examination, police sources said Tuesday. A Boeing 727 operated by Union des Transports Africains (UTA), which is registered in Guinea, crashed into the sea on takeoff from Cotonou, the main city in Benin, killing 139 of the 161 people on board. Most of the passengers were Lebanese expatriates returning home for the holidays. A police source in Cotonou told journalists that the black boxes were sent at the weekend to Paris...