Latest news with #OakNorthBank
Sky News
07-05-2025
- Business
- Sky News
Savings Guide: How to make the most of your cash as expected rate cut looms
Why you can trust Sky News As we approach another expected Bank of England base rate cut, savings rates have started to fall, writes Anna Bowes, savings expert from The Private Office. Easy access After the launch of Chip's easy access account paying 4.76% AER, Sidekick updated its offering for new customers and launched its High Yield Cash Reserve Issue 5, also paying 4.76% - though part of this is a one-year bonus. Sidekick's partner, OakNorth Bank, is a fully authorised and regulated UK bank, so your cash is covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS). Remember, though, that if you have money held with OakNorth outside of the platform, you need to consider the total - both on and off platform - when checking your money is still protected. There are plenty of straightforward accounts available too. Although Charter Savings Bank has withdrawn Issue 58 of its easy access account which was paying 4.59% AER, there are others offering similar rates. Oxbury Bank's Easy Access Limited Edition 2 account is paying 4.58% and there is no short-term bonus or restricted access you need to be aware of. But the minimum deposit is £20,000 and you'll earn no interest if your balance falls below. For those with less to deposit, Chetwood Bank's easy access account is paying 4.52% AER and there are no bonuses or access restrictions to worry about. Of course, if there is a base rate cut this week and in the coming months, anyone with variable savings rates are likely to see the interest they are earning come down - so make checking your account rates a priority. Easy access cash ISAs Considering we are expecting a base rate this week, it is very interesting to see that the top easy access rates on offer have not budged over the last week. The top two accounts are available via financial app companies Plum and MoneyBox paying 5.06% and 5.05% respectively. But as they are not banks in their own right, your money is deposited with their partner banks - CitiBank in the case of Plum and a split between Santander and HSBC if you opt for MoneyBox. This means that your cash is protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, assuming you don't hold £85,000 with these banks already. If you'd rather not use a financial app. Vida Savings has a Defined Access ISA Issue 1 paying 4.63% AER. This account can be opened online with a minimum of £100 - but, as the name suggests, you are restricted on the amount of penalty free withdrawals that can be made each year. And although the latest issue of its Easy Access Cash ISA Issue 58 is paying a slightly lower rate than the previous offer that it withdrew last week, Charter Savings Bank, which is also an online account, is paying 4.56% AER that allows you to make as many withdrawals as you like. Fixed rate bonds Although some of the best fixed-term bond rates available have fallen a little in the last month, there are still plenty of inflation-busting accounts available. With the base rate expected to fall this week and again in the next few months, now could be the time to fix the rate that some of your cash is earning. One-year Unfortunately we have seen a few of the best paying one-year accounts being withdrawn recently. LHV, which had been topping the table with its bond paying 4.65%, was the most recent withdrawal. Castle Trust toyed with us briefly with a one-year bond paying 4.62%, but that was withdrawn within a couple of days. This leaves a plethora of top rates paying 4.55% - Cynergy Bank, GB Bank, Tandem and the Access Bank. Things are heading downwards, though, so act fast if you want to lock in at the current rates. Two-year There have been a few more accounts which have been removed from the best buy tables over the last week, including the market leader, Cynergy Bank, paying 4.53% and its short-term replacement from Castle Trust paying 4.54%. This has left JN Bank offering the top rate, paying 4.48% AER. Three-year If you are looking to lock some of your cash for three years, you'll have seen the top rates fall slightly here too - although they are still worth contemplating if you think rates will fall further. At the moment, the top rate available has fallen from 4.55% a week ago to 4.48% - that's £7 less each year on a deposit of £10,000 - not a huge loss as of yet, but things may fall further. The situation is similar for five-year bonds. Once again, the top rate on offer has fallen from 4.55% a week ago to its current level of 4.48%. JN Bank is the provider topping the two-year, three-year and five-year tables. With the top rate of a five-year bond being the same as the two-year and three-year, this could be a good time to lock some cash up for longer, without feeling you are missing out. Fixed rate ISAs There's been less disruption in the fixed rate ISA tables, but we've still seen some rates tumbling. While there's not been an improvement in the one-year table, there is a little bit of good news as OakNorth Bank has decided to join Castle Trust at the top of the table with an ISA paying 4.26% AER. Unfortunately, this simply replaced Kent Reliance and Close Brothers which both withdrew their ISAs paying the same rate. It's been quiet but mixed in the one-year table. While we lost Hinckley & Rugby, paying a joint second place rate of 4.2%, Cynergy launched a new issue paying 4.19%, keeping the overall average of the top five at 4.19%. The three and the five-year tables have seen no changes recently, leaving the top rates paying 4.20% and 4.30% respectively. At first glance, top cash ISA rates may seem less competitive than those offered by fixed-rate bonds. But once tax is taken into account, the effective return on a taxable savings account is often lower. Consider a one-year bond from Cynergy Bank offering 4.55%. After deducting basic rate tax of 20%, the net return drops to 3.64%. On a £20,000 deposit, that equates to £728 in interest-compared with £852 from the leading one-year cash ISA, which is tax-free. That said, if you're a non-taxpayer or haven't yet used your full personal savings allowance, a taxable account could still offer better value.
Bloomberg
06-05-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
SoftBank-Backed OakNorth Partners With OpenAI to Expand AI Uses
By Takeaways NEW OakNorth Bank Plc has agreed to use OpenAI's generative AI technology in everything from drafting loan agreements to internal audit. The London-based business lender said on Tuesday it will collaborate with the tech giant to roll out custom-built GPT tools for its hundreds of staff as it eyes a 'significant increase in firmwide productivity gains.'
Zawya
09-04-2025
- Business
- Zawya
Banks to battle exchanges for fees on Britain's new private share trading platform
LONDON - Britain's hopes of an equity capital market revival are weighing heavily on a secondary share trading platform that is sowing discord in the finance sector months before its launch. The Private Intermittent Securities and Capital Exchange System (PISCES) will give private company owners opportunity to sell their shares on regulated exchanges in special trading windows, effectively 'going public' on a temporary basis. Ministers and regulators are betting on PISCES to increase ties between cash-rich investors and private firms, and ideally encourage the latter to pursue big-ticket listings that have eluded London for several years. But the concept was proving a tough sell in some quarters of the UK financial industry, even before U.S. President Donald Trump's blockbuster tariffs hit global trade and capital markets, threatening to spark what billionaire financier Bill Ackman dubbed "a self-induced economic nuclear winter". More than a dozen bankers who spoke to Reuters about PISCES fear hits to revenues and ultimately being bypassed in a booming market for private capital. But they also pointed to other potential downsides to using the platform. These include a lack of privacy on sales outcomes which may harm future valuations of fledgling firms, the risks a competitor or predatory activist could infiltrate the shareholder register and demand outsized influence, and reduced legal protections for investors against insider dealing. As a result, several bankers said they were unlikely to recommend PISCES to the majority of their sell-side or buyside clients, or at best, use it as a last resort, potentially hampering take-up. This lack of enthusiasm could have costly implications for Chancellor Rachel Reeves' bid to jumpstart anaemic economic growth in Britain, at a time when international rivals are hustling to replace London as Europe's premier financial hub. Several sources contacted by Reuters said they had doubts about the true depth of demand for a platform like PISCES. Owners will be able to set a price range for the shares they wish to sell, but they may not be able to conceal disappointing pricing as easily as they might if they had instructed a bank to hand-pick investors and sell entirely off-market. "Without the liquidity, it becomes a vulnerable place for a business to be because PISCES is always going to be more public than doing a purely bilateral secondary transaction," Rishi Khosla, CEO and co-founder of OakNorth Bank, told Reuters. "The key unanswered question is how to bring liquidity into it." REVENUE AT RISK The question of who has most to gain, or lose, from PISCES is dominating chatter in London's financial circles. Simon Walls, the Financial Conduct Authority's (FCA) interim executive director of markets, said PISCES could act as a "stepping stone" to full listings, but some analysts say firms who tap the market effectively may eschew IPO plans altogether, denying banks a lucrative payday. This fear, combined with rising competition to lend from non-banks like Apollo, BlackRock, Blackstone , ARES and KKR, has played a part in dampening banker enthusiasm for PISCES, sources said. Banks typically charge fees of around 5% for connecting companies with new backers in private placements or off-market stock sales. But PISCES is expected to offer a cheaper alternative to bank-led transactions, meaning exchange operators like London Stock Exchange will earn a chunk of the fees that used to end up in bankers' pockets. LSEG has not yet disclosed PISCES' pricing structure but will have no say over any other fees levied by banks, advisers and service providers who support companies using the platform. Not everyone believes banks stand to lose out financially from the advent of PISCES, which the FCA describes as the first trading platform of its kind. Those banks willing to adapt equity capital markets and corporate brokerage teams to tap new private company clients could turn PISCES into a money-spinner, another source said. "Maybe you're not charging 5% on a deal that happens once every two years. But if there's an auction every six months, you're more likely to build a relationship which leads to more lending and more services," the person said. "It's a huge opportunity to increase a client base for very little shoe leather." Other bank sources said clients had already expressed misgivings about the lighter disclosure demands on firms trading on PISCES compared with other markets where liquidity was also more reliable. Until the platform boasts some success stories, few said they would be willing to invest the time marketing PISCES to nervous clients, when tried-and-trusted mechanisms are already in place. James Tyler, Counsel at law firm Peters and Peters, said it was notable that the usual market abuse and insider dealing rules will not apply to the new PISCES market, citing the emphasis of 'caveat emptor' emphasis in the FCA consultation. "Unfortunately, the risks of harm to investors and market abuse on the platform seem high when set against a limited business case," he said. (Reporting by Sinead Cruise; Editing by Susan Fenton)
Yahoo
09-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Analysis-Banks to battle exchanges for fees on Britain's new private share trading platform
By Sinead Cruise LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's hopes of an equity capital market revival are weighing heavily on a secondary share trading platform that is sowing discord in the finance sector months before its launch. The Private Intermittent Securities and Capital Exchange System (PISCES) will give private company owners opportunity to sell their shares on regulated exchanges in special trading windows, effectively 'going public' on a temporary basis. Ministers and regulators are betting on PISCES to increase ties between cash-rich investors and private firms, and ideally encourage the latter to pursue big-ticket listings that have eluded London for several years. But the concept was proving a tough sell in some quarters of the UK financial industry, even before U.S. President Donald Trump's blockbuster tariffs hit global trade and capital markets, threatening to spark what billionaire financier Bill Ackman dubbed "a self-induced economic nuclear winter". More than a dozen bankers who spoke to Reuters about PISCES fear hits to revenues and ultimately being bypassed in a booming market for private capital. But they also pointed to other potential downsides to using the platform. These include a lack of privacy on sales outcomes which may harm future valuations of fledgling firms, the risks a competitor or predatory activist could infiltrate the shareholder register and demand outsized influence, and reduced legal protections for investors against insider dealing. As a result, several bankers said they were unlikely to recommend PISCES to the majority of their sell-side or buyside clients, or at best, use it as a last resort, potentially hampering take-up. This lack of enthusiasm could have costly implications for Chancellor Rachel Reeves' bid to jumpstart anaemic economic growth in Britain, at a time when international rivals are hustling to replace London as Europe's premier financial hub. Several sources contacted by Reuters said they had doubts about the true depth of demand for a platform like PISCES. Owners will be able to set a price range for the shares they wish to sell, but they may not be able to conceal disappointing pricing as easily as they might if they had instructed a bank to hand-pick investors and sell entirely off-market. "Without the liquidity, it becomes a vulnerable place for a business to be because PISCES is always going to be more public than doing a purely bilateral secondary transaction," Rishi Khosla, CEO and co-founder of OakNorth Bank, told Reuters. "The key unanswered question is how to bring liquidity into it." REVENUE AT RISK The question of who has most to gain, or lose, from PISCES is dominating chatter in London's financial circles. Simon Walls, the Financial Conduct Authority's (FCA) interim executive director of markets, said PISCES could act as a "stepping stone" to full listings, but some analysts say firms who tap the market effectively may eschew IPO plans altogether, denying banks a lucrative payday. This fear, combined with rising competition to lend from non-banks like Apollo, BlackRock, Blackstone, ARES and KKR, has played a part in dampening banker enthusiasm for PISCES, sources said. Banks typically charge fees of around 5% for connecting companies with new backers in private placements or off-market stock sales. But PISCES is expected to offer a cheaper alternative to bank-led transactions, meaning exchange operators like London Stock Exchange will earn a chunk of the fees that used to end up in bankers' pockets. LSEG has not yet disclosed PISCES' pricing structure but will have no say over any other fees levied by banks, advisers and service providers who support companies using the platform. Not everyone believes banks stand to lose out financially from the advent of PISCES, which the FCA describes as the first trading platform of its kind. Those banks willing to adapt equity capital markets and corporate brokerage teams to tap new private company clients could turn PISCES into a money-spinner, another source said. "Maybe you're not charging 5% on a deal that happens once every two years. But if there's an auction every six months, you're more likely to build a relationship which leads to more lending and more services," the person said. "It's a huge opportunity to increase a client base for very little shoe leather." Other bank sources said clients had already expressed misgivings about the lighter disclosure demands on firms trading on PISCES compared with other markets where liquidity was also more reliable. Until the platform boasts some success stories, few said they would be willing to invest the time marketing PISCES to nervous clients, when tried-and-trusted mechanisms are already in place. James Tyler, Counsel at law firm Peters and Peters, said it was notable that the usual market abuse and insider dealing rules will not apply to the new PISCES market, citing the emphasis of 'caveat emptor' emphasis in the FCA consultation. "Unfortunately, the risks of harm to investors and market abuse on the platform seem high when set against a limited business case," he said.
Reuters
09-04-2025
- Business
- Reuters
Banks to battle exchanges for fees on Britain's new private share trading platform
LONDON, April 9 (Reuters) - Britain's hopes of an equity capital market revival are weighing heavily on a secondary share trading platform that is sowing discord in the finance sector months before its launch. The Private Intermittent Securities and Capital Exchange System (PISCES) will give private company owners opportunity to sell their shares on regulated exchanges in special trading windows, effectively 'going public' on a temporary basis. Ministers and regulators are betting on PISCES to increase ties between cash-rich investors and private firms, and ideally encourage the latter to pursue big-ticket listings that have eluded London for several years. But the concept was proving a tough sell in some quarters of the UK financial industry, even before U.S. President Donald Trump's blockbuster tariffs hit global trade and capital markets, threatening to spark what billionaire financier Bill Ackman dubbed "a self-induced economic nuclear winter". More than a dozen bankers who spoke to Reuters about PISCES fear hits to revenues and ultimately being bypassed in a booming market for private capital. But they also pointed to other potential downsides to using the platform. These include a lack of privacy on sales outcomes which may harm future valuations of fledgling firms, the risks a competitor or predatory activist could infiltrate the shareholder register and demand outsized influence, and reduced legal protections for investors against insider dealing. As a result, several bankers said they were unlikely to recommend PISCES to the majority of their sell-side or buyside clients, or at best, use it as a last resort, potentially hampering take-up. This lack of enthusiasm could have costly implications for Chancellor Rachel Reeves' bid to jumpstart anaemic economic growth in Britain, at a time when international rivals are hustling to replace London as Europe's premier financial hub. Several sources contacted by Reuters said they had doubts about the true depth of demand for a platform like PISCES. Owners will be able to set a price range for the shares they wish to sell, but they may not be able to conceal disappointing pricing as easily as they might if they had instructed a bank to hand-pick investors and sell entirely off-market. "Without the liquidity, it becomes a vulnerable place for a business to be because PISCES is always going to be more public than doing a purely bilateral secondary transaction," Rishi Khosla, CEO and co-founder of OakNorth Bank, told Reuters. "The key unanswered question is how to bring liquidity into it." REVENUE AT RISK The question of who has most to gain, or lose, from PISCES is dominating chatter in London's financial circles. Simon Walls, the Financial Conduct Authority's (FCA) interim executive director of markets, said PISCES could act as a "stepping stone" to full listings, but some analysts say firms who tap the market effectively may eschew IPO plans altogether, denying banks a lucrative payday. This fear, combined with rising competition to lend from non-banks like Apollo (APO.N), opens new tab, BlackRock (BLK.N), opens new tab, Blackstone (BX.N), opens new tab, ARES (ARES.N), opens new tab and KKR (KKR.N), opens new tab, has played a part in dampening banker enthusiasm for PISCES, sources said. Banks typically charge fees of around 5% for connecting companies with new backers in private placements or off-market stock sales. But PISCES is expected to offer a cheaper alternative to bank-led transactions, meaning exchange operators like London Stock Exchange (LSEG.L), opens new tab will earn a chunk of the fees that used to end up in bankers' pockets. LSEG has not yet disclosed PISCES' pricing structure but will have no say over any other fees levied by banks, advisers and service providers who support companies using the platform. Not everyone believes banks stand to lose out financially from the advent of PISCES, which the FCA describes as the first trading platform of its kind. Those banks willing to adapt equity capital markets and corporate brokerage teams to tap new private company clients could turn PISCES into a money-spinner, another source said. "Maybe you're not charging 5% on a deal that happens once every two years. But if there's an auction every six months, you're more likely to build a relationship which leads to more lending and more services," the person said. "It's a huge opportunity to increase a client base for very little shoe leather." Other bank sources said clients had already expressed misgivings about the lighter disclosure demands on firms trading on PISCES compared with other markets where liquidity was also more reliable. Until the platform boasts some success stories, few said they would be willing to invest the time marketing PISCES to nervous clients, when tried-and-trusted mechanisms are already in place. James Tyler, Counsel at law firm Peters and Peters, said it was notable that the usual market abuse and insider dealing rules will not apply to the new PISCES market, citing the emphasis of 'caveat emptor' emphasis in the FCA consultation. "Unfortunately, the risks of harm to investors and market abuse on the platform seem high when set against a limited business case," he said.
