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…)

Schroders Fund Management profits fell by 27% as investors withdrew £700m worth of assets during the second quarter of 2008. Investors are unwilling to commit funds to the markets as economic uncertainties remain. A situation that is likely to remain until at least early 2009. (more…)

Financial Services, and in particular the Banking sector is likely to experience a bout of significant job cuts that will impact both the London and Worldwide job markets. Earlier this week Merrill Lynch announced that it will cut 4,000 jobs with Citigroup quickly following suit, declaring that it expected to cut around 25,000 posts over the next few months. (more…)

Insurer Friends Provident has put up its wealth management business, Lombard, up for sale. There are a mix of insurers and private equity firms thought to be interested in the business, with French insurer La Mondiale, thought to be the front runner.

The sale, represents the latest in a line of attempts to takeover all or part of Friends Provident. JC Flowers, the prive equity firm, is still interested in Friends as a whole. Friends’ 53% stake in Foreign & Colonial asset management is still up for sale but isn’t shifting and now Towergate is thought to be interested in Pantheon, its intermediary business.

London Scottish Bank is to quit lending and focus on debt collection following continued scrutiny from the Financial Services Authority (FSA). The Bank has insufficient regulatory capital to the tune of £12.7m but has been working closely with the FSA to devise a plan that will rectify the issue. London Scottish Bank is to focus on debt collection.