London mayor Boris Johnson has warned that up to 9,000 bankers could leave London thanks to the recently imposed tax raid on their bonuses.

A new tax rule states that there will be a 50% tax on bonuses over £25,000 – a tax which wil initially only be for a year. The Conservatives have said that if they win the General Election they will scrap this new tax.

Although the new tax is predicted to bring in around £5 billion, Johnson believes that it could have a massive detrimental effect on the City and could undermine London’s status as one of the World’s financial capitals.  Read more... (258 words, 1 image, estimated 1:02 mins reading time)

The black hole in the UK’s final salary private pension schemes is reported to have passed the £1 trillion mark.

Research by Aon Consulting has shown that the cost of meeting pensions is has risen with the 200 largest schemes now facing liabilities of over £500 billion. The rise in liabilities is down to a number of factors, most notably the fall of corporate bond yields (on which the costs of future pensions are based).

The figures make poor reading for those heading for retirement age in the near future as it means they will either have less money per year than they had planned for, or they will have to work for longer than anticipated.  Read more... (157 words, estimated 38 secs reading time)

Officials have confirmed that Chancellor Alistair Darling is planning to extend to role of the Financial Services Authority (FSA) with the new Banking Act that will give them greater power to police banks and the financial system.

There have been question marks over whether the changes will see an overlap with the Bank of England’s responsibilities and therefore potentially cause a clash between the two watchdogs. However officials have said that the new Act will not limit or undermine the Bank of England’s current position.  Read more... (141 words, estimated 34 secs reading time)

In Russia and the Ukraine, devious criminals have discovered a way to get ATMs to print out a list of all the debit cards used recently in the machine, including start and expiry dates and the PIN associated with the card. This information can then be used to clone debit cards by the gangs.

Previously, the big ATM fraud was to use a fake ATM fascia. This fascia would contain a card reader to skim the card details, and a pinhole camera to capture the user’s PIN. Banks have invested heavily in anti-skimming technology and can now detect fake overlays and disable the ATM accordingly. In 2008, it is estimated by the European ATM Security Team (EAST) that ATM fraud grew by 11 percent to 484 million Euro.  Read more... (576 words, estimated 2:18 mins reading time)

The number of households saving money has fallen dramatically over the past year. At this time last year, 50% of people tried to save some money each month. This year, 85% of people have said they have nothing left at the end of the month to put into savings.

Scottish Widows surveyed a number of people and called the results ‘alarming’. The lack of savings is put down to a difficult economic climate culminating in unemployment and pay freezes.

75% of families have said that daily living costs were preventing them from saving, up from 67% last year. 42% of families said that debts prevented them from saving, up 10% from 2008.  Read more... (173 words, estimated 42 secs reading time)

Latest figures show that over a million home owners are currently in negative equity. The Council of Mortgage Lenders has collated data from the UK’s banks and building societies to analyse February’s mortgage state.

Around 565,000 homeowners have equity of 5% of less in their property and another half a million have under 10 percent equity in their home. All these homeowners may find it difficult to remortgage as many mortgage products now require 10% equity of more on new mortgage deals.  Read more... (215 words, estimated 52 secs reading time)