Thursday, December 12, 2013
HCBF Hires head of sales
Hitachi Capital Business Finance (HCBF) has appointed Chris Gleasure as head of sales.
Gleasure joins the UK asset finance arm of the Japanese manufacturer from Xerox Financial Services where he was European sales and marketing manager. He has also held roles at Ulster Bank, Lombard Ireland and ECS Ireland over an 18-year career.
Gleasure will report to Robert Gordon, chief operating officer of Hitachi Capital, and is tasked with further developing Hitachi Capital's partner relationships and its broker channel.
HCBF has added 28 members of staff to its operations team since April this year, growing from 17 to 45 personnel. The company said it is committed to an ambitious growth strategy and plans to improve the speed and efficiency of its pay-out processes.
Gleasure said Hitachi Capital has the potential to be a leading player in the UK market and he was looking forward to helping the business to capitalise on the "significant opportunities ahead".
DATED: 12.12.2013
FEED: MF
Callcredit for sale
Callcredit Information Group has been put up for sale by Virtuvian Partners, the buyout firm which has owned the credit reference agency since 2009.
German media firm Bertelsmann, and Charterhouse, Permira and GTCR are believed to be among the bidders, with investment bank Jeffries looking after the sale.
Callcredit, previously owned by Skipton Building Society, currently employs approximately 800 people in the UK.
According to a February 2012 Motor Finance survey of underwriting staff at independent lenders, a quarter were using Callcredit.
In May 2012, subprime lenders The Car Finance Company and Moneybarn also spoke of the worth of Callcreditas an alternative to Experian and Equifax.
DATED: 12.12.2013
FEED: MF
The Banking Mechanism
Rightyho
A few people have DM'ed me asking for a brief overview of how it all works, so with a little wiggle room here's my take:
Savers deposit funds into a Bank, and Investors buy shares in a Bank
Savers give money to a safe financial body, one that likes to sit in buildings with big columns grand impenetrable stone walls and resolute stoic doors at the front.
A Bank being a company that likes to portray itself as strong, secure, robust. ( blimey, on a much smaller scale trading standards would have them over a barrel for misdescription....)
The Banks give the savers and investors a small return on their money, whilst keeping it safe
By keeping it safe I actually mean lending it to someone else who needs a loan, and charging a healthy and profitable return on it
Nowhere near the paltry (sorry, notional) return they give to their savers.
They also act as a repository of transient money, i.e. our wages.
Example: so our employers pay us lets say £1000 this month from their BANK account to our BANK account, and we call this payroll, we've earned our wages, and we're damn well going to spend 'em.
We then pay our Mortgage ( don't get me started on that ) and our bills and liabilities, by transferring our money from our BANK to someone elses BANK. ( Cards, finance, food, entertainment, christmas pressies )
Getting it yet ?
Everybody's money moves, except the Banks.
The Banks then use all this lovely money sloshing round their system as security for whopping great loans, that they make to each other, this is called Inter Bank lending.
The rate these Banks pay to each other is set by LIBOR, the London Inter Bank offer rate, which might explain why some of the Banks were so pissed off when others were manipulating that rate.
So the Banks take your money and turn it, realise a profit, share some of that profit with savers and investors, and park the rest in the coffers to distribute to shareholders, key staff, and of course the Directors ( pension funds are always popular )
Money caught in this loop is cyclic, it just keeps going round and round.
The Banks also use some of their profits (growth) to act as security when underwriting or guaranteeing financial products such as life insurance, assurance, debt and term investments.
They use this, and their "Secure Brand" to entice people to invest their money in different ways, pensions, ISA's and other financial devices - all designed to keep the money sloshing around their system, and in their 'loop'
The more money they make from these products, by sharing less with the customer of course, the more investors want to buy their shares, which drives the share price up ( supply and demand ) which values the Bank more highly, which they can borrow against.
Oh, and lets not forget that each share bought has an original value that was deposited in that Banking business as a cash investment.
So, the more profit the Bank makes, the higher the share price, the more the Bank is worth, the more they can borrow, to turn for a profit.
The Banks don't make anything, they don't do anything, they don't contribute anything to the success of this country, but they have almost ultimate control over all of us, as they hold the purse strings. Politics, Media, Commerce and Industry all need cashflow, and if the Banks 'computer says no' then even corporate giants can fall.
Its all a rather silly game which came to an abrupt halt in 2008 when inter bank lending slowed to a trickle, and it beggars belief that here we are 5 years on and the Banks have got everyone criticising and pointing the finger at everyone other than them.
Lets face it, no-one likes a spoilt brat, but we've put ours in charge of the money.
Andy Tong
Profit Training Ltd.
12.12.2013
FCA vs LTSB and BoS
The Financial Conduct Authority yesterday published the final report notice as per the link below,
http://www.fca.org.uk/static/documents/final-notices/lloyds-tsb-bank-and-bank-of-scotland.pdf
confirming the combined Bank businesses of :
Lloyds TSB Bank PLC and Bank of Scotland PLC, under firm reference numbers
119278 and 169628 respectively were fined a total of £35,048,500 pounds, to which they received a 20% discount for early settlement, taking the actual penalty payment to
£28,038,800
Thats £28 Million pounds of our support money.
Lets be clear, this is about mis-selling financial products to retail customers, us.
If a financial product pays less to a retail customer, it yields more to its parent business
This Bank heavily incentivised staff to sell products that were either; not fit for purpose ( pure mis-sell), under performing, or non performing compared to market
At what point are people going to wake up and realise that Banks are not reputable pillars of our society ? they have propagated that image for far too long and as anyone I have trained will testify - I despise their strategies with a passion.
I worked for a Bank for 11 years, their motto was "Ignorance = Profit" the less the customer knows, the more profit can be harvested from them via financial 'advice' (sic. sales )
I am astonished that everyone is jumping on the bandwagon of 'lets beat up the Pay Day lenders', these people have a market created for them by the Banks who are not lending to specific socio economic / demographic group.
As the Banks create a vacuum, other lenders will fill the gaps, if not legitimate licensed lenders, then illegitimate unlicensed ones, STOP yammering on about Pay Day lenders and realise that if the Banks delivered on their social obligations these lenders would naturally pull out of the UK market as it wouldn't exist. Or to put it another way, the Banks made the space and watched it fill up.
And, to be clear, This Bank have just paid £28 million in fines - which represents about 0.4% of the profit made in the review period from products sold that were considered 'unsuitable' for the end users purposes or requirements.
Martin Lewis says 'stand your ground when it comes to Banks'
Paul Lewis says 'don't buy financial products from a Bank'
both of these guys are respected authorities and I agree wholeheartedly with them, but might I propose that we all do the following:
STOP believing the utter financial drivel they spout. They are incapable of running their own businesses, what makes you think their advice is any good ?
STOP buying the sensationalist waffle in the media, its all smoke and mirrors to stop you looking too hard at the Banks. Other lenders don't have the BRAND that the Banks do, so they attempt to undermine the credibility of these organisation at every turn, and they are succeeding.
STOP thinking this is someone elses problem, whether directly or indirectly this issue is, or will hit each of us so hard in the coming decade.
Wake up please Great Britain, realise that Banks in the UK are poorly run, bloated financial leviathans that have been found out by their own incompetencies, and like some street magician are offering you flimsy distractions such as other players in the markets
These fines are insignificant to these juggernaut businesses, media just want to sell paper and you are on the internet looking at this article.
Go and look some more, find out, read and understand - and drop me a line if you don't get something, if I can help, I will.
Andy Tong
Profit Training Ltd.
12.12.2013
