News that banks are looking to further tighten their lending criteria and the ever reducing number of new mortgage approvals raises hopes that the Bank of England will cut interest rates. (more…)

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac received Government support yesterday and all seemed well with the banking world. What a difference a day makes….Lehman Brothers dipped 30% on the news that it may not be able to raise the required funding to cover its losses. The credit crunch has led the bank to raise $6bn to cover write-downs. Lehman’s shares are down more than 90% this year and is it’s the US’s fourth largest investment bank, it too cannot be allowed to fail.

Make the most of your savings with an award winning, high interest savings account from Icesave. Icesave launched in Britain in October 2006 and now consistently features at the top of best buy tables in the national press and on price comparison websites. As recently as 26 July 2008 Icesave was commended for ‘Best Savings Account’ by the readers of What Investment magazine. This is for the second year running.

Icesave’s 200,000 strong customer base continues to grow not only thanks to its commitment to offering savers high interest rates, but also its straightforward online application process which means you can sign up for an account in under ten minutes.  (more…)

Alliance & Leicester posted pre-tax profits of just £2m. Operating profits increased by 2% to £301m, however they also recorded £279m of extra costs, losses and write-downs due to the continuing turbulence in the mortgage markets.

Alliance & Leicester is to be taken over by Banco Santander as the bank believes it would be hard pressed to weather future shocks and write-downs. Being part of a larger group with a much more solid balance sheet is a sensible route for A&L to take.

Existing shareholders of Bradford & Bingley - Insight Investment, Legal & General, M&G and Standard Life - will purchase £400m worth of new shares following the withdrawal of Texas Pacific Groups (TPG) offer to buy 23% of the British Bank.

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The Bradford & Bingley, Co-operative bank and First Direct have today raised the cost of their fixed rate mortgages as Banks find it increasingly difficult to raise finance to fund mortgage deals. The Co-op saw the biggest rise as they increased their rates between 0.7% and 0.9%. The move by these three banks now takes the average cost of a fixed rate mortgage to over 7%. (more…)

HBOS’s £4bn rights issue looks under pressure as once again the shares dipped below the 275p issue price. UBS has raised concerns that the Banks mortgage arrears will increase over the second half of the year. Also a US hedge fund has declared its short position in the stock, showing that it has bet that the share price will fall. (more…)