It looks like Barclays is planning at least 2,100 job cuts worldwide, equating to 7% of its workforce.

The details are a little sketchy at the moment, so it’s unclear how many of these jobs will go from the U.K., but these job losses join the 400 redundancies announced by Barclays a couple of weeks ago.

It is understood that 1,300 jobs will go at investment arm Barclays Capital, while 500 positions will be axed at Barclays Wealth. A further 370 jobs are set to go at Barclays Global Investors.

We’ll post more details when they become available.

Update 14/01/2009: It now appears that 500 of the jobs will be lost in the U.K..

Update 14/01/2009: Barclays has just announced another 2,100 job cuts, all from its U.K. operations, largely branches an Barclaycard, from what I understand.

photo credit: Kai Hendry

Barclays Planning 2,100 Redundancies was originally published at Money Watch a UK personal finance blog. Sign up to our RSS feed and follow us on Twitter.

There are a couple of scams to be on the look out for, with fraudsters attempting to steal bank and credit card details and empty accounts using a couple of tactics.

In the first scam, emails are sent out to try and get people to apply for a tax refund by entering their bank and credit card details on a fake website – known as phishing.

Despite its apparent simplicity, this new scam has been described as one of the most sophisticated and prolific phishing campaigns that the HMRC has seen. Recipients of such emails are urged to send it to the HMRC for investigation. Thousands of such emails have been sent in the past few weeks, and it is thought that many more will be sent in the run up to the self-assessment deadline.

The second scam is an old favourite, yet slightly less sophisticated, but is worth keeping an eye out for nonetheless, as there have been more occurances of it recently. This scam simply involves hoax telephone calls claiming to be from the recipient’s bank, and asks them for their account details.

You should always be wary of such calls, and should report anything you’re not sure about to your bank. Always ask to call your bank back on a recognised number if you’re unsure.

photo credit: alex_lee2001

Keep Your Eyes Open For These 2 Scams was originally published at Money Watch a UK personal finance blog. Sign up to our RSS feed and follow us on Twitter.

There is a little hysteria starting on the MoneySavingExpert forum, and it’s difficult to know whether some of the stories of online accounts being frozen and the like are just people getting a little over-excited, but most expert commentary would seem to suggest that it’s little more than a “buffer” for ING.

It would definitely be ironic (if not particularly funny for those with savings with them) if the bank that rescued the failing Icelandic bank, Kaupthing Edge, was itself found to be in trouble.

There’s a full press release from ING here, which also mentions that their share dividend for later in the year have been cancelled, so expect their share price to fall on the markets this week.

ING Gets Cash Injection was originally published at Money Watch a UK personal finance blog. Sign up to our RSS feed and follow us on Twitter.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4 this morning, Darling said he would ensure that no British Icesave customers would lose money, although he could not give similar guarantees should other banks have the same problem in the future.

There will be more reaction on this, and his other plans for a bank bailout, later on Money Watch.

Icesave: Darling Guarantees All Deposits was originally published at Money Watch a UK personal finance blog. Sign up to our RSS feed and follow us on Twitter.

You only have to take a look at the Money Saving Expert forums (and the Savings & Investments forum in particular) to see how the news of Icesave’s demise has gone down with its 300,000 British savers – post after post of queries asking how much of their money is protected and how they can get their money back.

What do Icesave savers need to know?

The key info appears to be that if Icesave does go bust, which appears to be the most likely outcome, savers will have to claim back their money through the European Passport System of the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) in the first instance, up to £16,200, and then the rest, up to the new maximum of £50,000, through the FSCS here in the UK.

As of writing, no compensation has yet been triggered to be paid, as the bank is still, in effect, operational. This could of course change at any moment.

For more information, it’s worth keeping an eye on the Money Saving Expert Kaupthing & Icesave Official Notes forum post, and also Icesave customer’s questions have been answered by BBC Radio 4’s Paul Lewis, of the Money Box programme. Of course we’ll post more here at Money Watch when we find out what’s going on.

On a related note, we should find out the details of the Government’s rescue of the banks in the morning. Interesting times, to say the least.
 
photo credit: Ksionic

Icesave: Useful Info For Savers was originally published at Money Watch a UK personal finance blog. Sign up to our RSS feed and follow us on Twitter.

With £20bn of savings, it’s a big chunk of cash and a lot of savers will be affected – but it’s worth reiterating that savers’ money will be safe, and they’ll join the customers of Abbey and Alliance & Leicester in the Santander group (indeed, Bradford & Bingley savings accounts will probably become Abbey accounts, if the deal goes through).

So B&B savers should be ok, but Bradford & Bingley staff might not be so lucky.

Santander “To Acquire Bradford & Bingley” was originally published at Money Watch a UK personal finance blog. Sign up to our RSS feed and follow us on Twitter.

Yesterday we wrote how Bradford & Bingley appeared to be on the verge of going bust, and it seems that the Treasury are indeed now working towards a part-private sale part-nationalisation of the UK’s 8th largest bank.

The BBC reports that 200 of their branches will be sold, the savings business and other parts of the company will be sold off to other banks, leaving the mortgage business to be nationalised and possibly be looked after by Northern Rock.

It could possibly be seen as a middle way between the deals done for Northern Rock (completely nationalised) and Lloyds’ takeover of HBOS, which was brokered by the Government but was effectively a private sale.

For a good account of how things have progressed this weekend, read the follow blog posts from Robert Peston:

1. 26th September 16:50 – B&B will be rescued soon
2. 27th September 08:17 – How will B&B be rescued?
3. 27th September 16:22 – B&B: taxpayers on hook for £40bn
4. 27th September 19:41 – B&B to be nationalised

The deal is likely to be announced before the stockmarket opens tomorrow morning, and we’ll post more information when it becomes available.

Bradford & Bingley To Be Nationalised was originally published at Money Watch a UK personal finance blog. Sign up to our RSS feed and follow us on Twitter.

There are increasing worries that the Bradford & Bingley bank is about to go bust, and will end up nationalised in much the same way as Northern Rock was.

Although it hasn’t been confirmed yet, B&B’s plunging share price has left it looking very shaky. There are rumours that it could be saved by the Government and merged with Northern Rock, although they are probably more hopeful that another bank will come in for them and buy them up, much like Lloyds TSB are doing for HBOS.

I suspect that things will evolve over this weekend, so once anything is confirmed we’ll have the news here on Money Watch.

For Bradford & Bingley customers, I wouldn’t be too worried, as I don’t think the Government could afford to let a major UK bank go bust, so your savings are pretty safe. Obviously, there’s no 100% guarantee

Bradford & Bingley Going Bust? was originally published at Money Watch a UK personal finance blog. Sign up to our RSS feed and follow us on Twitter.

OK, so maybe my version of how the new Lloyds TSB / HBOS logo should look isn’t quite as funny as this one.

Anyone got any more ideas for logos or names for the new banking group?

Lloyds TSB HBOS New Logo Revealed! was originally published at Money Watch a UK personal finance blog. Sign up to our RSS feed and follow us on Twitter.

Today’s extraordinary developments in UK banking have gradually been unfolding throughout the day.

Whilst nothing is yet set in stone (at least publically, although I’ve heard that this deal may have been talked about since December), a few more details on the Lloyds TSB / HBOS merger takeover are becoming clearer.

Once, again, we have BBC business editor Robert Peston to thank for the “inside info” on this deal.

1. It appears that Lloyds TSB will announce a price of approx. £2.80 £2.32 per share tomorrow, around twice the value of each share at the close of trading today.
2. The government will turn a blind eye to the fact that the creation of the “super-bank” could be creating a monopoly in the banking industry, arguing that it is primarily good for the stability of the economy and that the newly formed group will be kept in check by the Office of Fair Trading. This is in contrast to when Lloyds tried to takeover Abbey back in 2001 when the government blocked the bid on the grounds that it would be against public interest as it would stifle competition for current accounts and business banking.
3. Although we haven’t seen queues outside HBOS branches as happened with Northern Rock, it seems that savers were beginning to take their money out of HBOS, which worried the government enough to facilitate the merger, wanting to avoid another Northern Rock crisis. Indeed, I’ve heard that one division of HBOS has seen withdrawals of £30million in the past couple of days.
4. One big worry, and currently an unknown, is how Lloyds intends to cut costs once any takeover is complete – no doubt there will be branch closures and job losses to deal with.
5. The new group is to be called Lloyds TSB Halifax Bank Of Scotland Group PLC, and we have a copy of the new logo here.

OK,  I made up that last point, but you can bet the marketing people are having nightmares about any renaming and rebranding. Those that aren’t having nightmares about losing their jobs of course.

I guess there will be more to talk about tomorrow, so stay tuned for more Lloyds TSB / HBOS takeover related shennanigans.

UPDATE: Looks like Lloyds will now be offering £2.32 per share. More here.

More on the Lloyds / HBOS Takeover was originally published at Money Watch a UK personal finance blog. Sign up to our RSS feed and follow us on Twitter.