Chair of the Independent Commission on Banking–22 Jan speech

Sir John Vickers, Chair of the Independent Commission on Banking, made a speech today at London Business School, as part of the Regulating Financial Intermediaries – Challenges and Constraints conference jointly organised by London Business School and the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Read the full text of the speech

Read the Commission’s Sept 2010 Issues paper

FDIC closes four banks, taking the total number of failures to seven year to date.

Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) announced the closure of four banks, taking the total number of bank failures so far this year to seven.

The banks which failed were;

• McDonough, Ga.-based Enterprise Banking Community ($95.5 million in deposits as of Sept. 30)
• Easley, S.C.-based CommunitySouth Bank and Trust ($402.4 million in deposits)
• Asheville, N.C.-based Bank of Asheville ($188.3 million in deposits)
• Denver-based United Western Bank ($1.65 billion in deposits)

The FDIC estimates that these four failures will cost the federal deposit-insurance fund $454.9 million.

Read the FDIC press releases

FSA fines Barclays £7.7 million

The Financial Services Authority (FSA) has fined Barclays Bank plc (Barclays) £7.7 million for failures in relation to the sale of two funds. In addition to the fine, it has been estimated that this operational failure could cost Barclays up to £60 million in compensation, £17 million of which has already been paid out to customers.

This fine is the largest imposed by the Financial Services Authority for a case involving retail investors and the sixth largest in the regulator’s history.

Read the full story on FT.com

Read Barclays statement

Read the FSA press release in full