Sharlene Goff

More than a fifth of shareholders’ votes were cast against HSBC’s three-year pay policy in the latest sign of investor unrest during a stormy season of annual meetings. The rebellion came despite the bank’s last-ditch attempt to head off a revolt by cutting its chairman’s potential bonus. HSBC last week abandoned an earlier offer to pay Douglas Flint a one-off bonus of up to £2.25m in shares. The bank said it would cap the maximum the chairman could receive at £1m – or 44 per cent of his fixed…

Graduates falling behind on debt repayments were sent threatening letters from what appears to be an independent debt collection agency – but is in fact a pseudonym for the Student Loans Company. The revelation is awkward for Vince Cable, given that the quango falls under the remit of the Liberal Democrat business secretary, who vigorously advocates high standards in the business world. It emerged as Wonga, the payday lender, faced the possibility of a police investigation after it was found t…

Challenger firms are stepping up their assault on the UK banking market as established lenders from Barclays to Wonga become embroiled in new scandals, further eroding customer trust. During the past two weeks, Tesco Bank has entered the current account market; a big peer-to-peer lender has teamed up with Santander UK and Marks and Spencer and Sainsbury’s Bank have expanded their services as they try to break the dominance of the country’s biggest lenders. The government and regulators have be…

Lloyds Banking Group has admitted it sent debt collection letters that appeared to be from independent law firms because customers ignored correspondence when it carried the bank’s own letterhead. António Horta-Osório, Lloyds’ chief executive, said that since the late 1980s the bank had used the name Sechiari Clark & Mitchell – later rebranded SCM Solicitors – to chase debts even though the lawyers were in-house at the bank. Writing to Andrew Tyrie, chairman of the Treasury select committee (T…

A proposed competition investigation into retail and small business banking may have far-reaching consequences for Britain’s biggest lenders. It could force them to reveal hidden charges on personal current accounts and it might in theory result in a big sell-off of branches. Not that you would know it from the reaction of investors on Friday. The share prices of three of the UK’s four biggest lenders – Lloyds Banking Group, Barclays and HSBC – barely moved after the Competition and Markets Au…

Royal Bank of Scotland curbs Russian exposure

It is becoming an anxious time for UK recruiters. There are signs that activity in the labour market is starting to cool. Employers are struggling to offer inflation-beating pay rises. And many jobseekers are reluctant to commit. “There is not a huge flow of candidates,” says Doug Rode, managing director for the UK and Ireland at PageGroup, one of the UK’s biggest recruitment companies. “Vacancies have been harder to fill.” He points to trends highlighted by recent research from consultancy Ga…

The catering and hospitality sector is renowned for long hours, low pay and high pressure. But since the double shock of Brexit and the pandemic, operators have had to be more flexible, not only to improve staff morale but to recruit and retain enough workers. Research from Cairn Hotel Group found a third of hotel workers expected to leave the industry after six months. Data from CGA Insight this summer revealed 61 per cent of British hospitality businesses were experiencing staff shortages and…

Janine Chamberlin’s return from maternity leave to her job as UK country manager at LinkedIn in February was very different to her experience after her son was born 13 years ago. Her new flexible, hybrid work schedule — spending some time in the office and doing some work remotely — means “I can spend time with my daughter before I get to the office,” she says, while her partner picks up the childcare later. But her son was born before working from home became an established norm amid the pande…

Initiatives beyond pay can help tackle debilitating effects of money worries