International banks received a new year fillip when regulators announced that the first ever global liquidity standards would be less onerous than expected and not be fully enforced until 2019, four years later than expected, reports the Financial Times.
Aimed at preventing a repeat of the 2008 bank collapses, the “liquidity coverage ratio” (LCR) announced on Sunday marks the first time that global regulators have sought to require individual banks to hold enough cash and easy-to-sell assets to allow them to survive a short-term market crisis. The measure is the second critical plank of the Basel III reform package. Tougher new capital rules began to be phased in this month.
Good News Britain: Finance chiefs turn optimistic as fear of recession starts to fade
Executives holding the purse strings of the UK’s leading companies are in more optimistic mood after steering their businesses through a double-dip recession and strengthening balance sheets, research out on Monday shows, reports The Daily Telegraph.
The marked change in outlook among heads of finance over the last year is reflected in a survey by consultants Deloitte among 112 leading companies, including 36 in the FTSE 100 and 38 FTSE 250 businesses.
Junk bonds’ fire is poised to fade
Junk bonds started 2013 much like they finished 2012—on fire. In just three trading days this year, bonds of low-rated companies delivered returns of almost three-quarters of a percent, even as most other types of bonds lost value, reports The Wall Street Journal.
And junk bonds continued to clock new milestones: Average prices soared to their highest since 2004 and average yields, which decline as prices rise, dropped below 6 per cent for the first time ever, according to Barclays. But the rapid march is making fund managers and analysts wary.
Axa seeks £1bn for long-lease UK fund
Axa Real Estate, the property arm of the French insurer, has asked investors for £1bn to buy buildings in the UK with unusually long leases, in the latest sign that the appetite for long-term property assets continues to grow, reports the Financial Times.
The fund, which will invest in properties such as supermarkets and doctors’ surgeries, is the latest in a string to be launched by Axa, which owns €43bn (£34.9bn) of property spread across Europe.
Tax fraud at highest level since start of crisis
Tax fraud has reached its highest level since the onset of the financial crisis, as VAT evasion has exploded, costing Britain more than £3bn a year, reports The Daily Telegraph.
The size of the so-called “VAT gap” due to fraud, the difference between the amount of tax HMRC expects to receive and what it actually collects, is reckoned to have reached £3.3bn, or enough to fund a 1p reduction in the tax of every UK taxpayer.
Smartphone sales to hit 1bn a year for first time in 2013
The smartphone is predicted to become a mass market phenomenon this year, with annual shipments soaring to 1bn globally for the first time, although a fifth of the devices will rarely be used to go online, reports The Guardian.
In 2013 the smartphone will become an everyday object worldwide, according to a study by accountants Deloitte, bringing the number of active phones with either a touch screen or an alphabet keyboard to 2bn by the end of the year.
