Credit card holders who make minimum repayments warned they could be in debt for years longer Some Barclaycard customers who only make the minimum repayment each month will take an extra decade to clear their debt and pay hundreds of pounds in extra interest after the credit card provider changed its terms. Barclaycard – thought to be the UK’s biggest credit card provider – has written to customers telling them it is cutting their minimum payments to give them “more flexibility ..read more

Wealthy nations exploit their position as the world’s bankers to siphon off hundreds of billions from the needy Developing nations have long complained that globalisation has enthroned western currencies in such a way as to subsidise living standards in the rich world. Last year, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – the Brics – even talked of an alternative common currency to replace the dollar. Wealthy countries, perhaps, think that their ambitious goals for aid defuse arguments over their “exorbitant privilege”. As TS Eliot put it, “between the idea and the reality … falls the sha ..read more

The divestment movement has a long history among US student activists, including in the overlapping movements of today Student protesters are demanding universities divest from Israel. What does that mean? Cameron Jones first learned about fossil fuel divestment as a 15-year-old climate organizer. When he enrolled at Columbia University in 2022, he joined the campus’s chapter of the youth-led climate justice group the Sunrise Movement and began pushing the school in New York to sever financial ties with coal, oil and gas companies. “The time for institutions like Columbia to be in the pocket ..read more

Pre-tax profits drop to £1.6bn between January and March, down from £2.3bn last year Business live – latest updates Lloyds Banking Group has suffered a 28% drop in first-quarter profits amid tough competition for mortgages and savings, but bosses said they expected those pressures to soon ease, helped by an improving UK economy. The country’s largest mortgage lender, which also owns the Halifax brand, said pre-tax profits dropped to £1.6bn between January and March, having fallen from £2.3bn last year when rising interest rates boosted the lender’s profits by almost 50 ..read more

Bank of England executive says creeping sense of complacency and lack of data is putting lenders at risk UK banks are leaving themselves open to “severe, unexpected losses”, by failing to properly measure how exposed they are to the $8tn private equity industry, the Bank of England has warned. In a speech on Tuesday, Rebecca Jackson, a senior executive at the central bank, said there was a “creeping sense of complacency” among lenders, who – despite a boom in loans and financing to the sector – had almost no ability to put together data “or even appreciate its crucial importance ..read more

The Jubilee 2000 saw $130bn of debt written off, and yet we now find ourselves in a renewed global debt crisis, says Maria Finnerty of Cafod The Guardian is right to identify the global sovereign debt crisis as one of the most critical impediments to sustainable development today (Editorial,16 April). Debt relief is urgently needed, but we must also learn the lessons of history. The historic Jubilee 2000 debt relief campaign saw $130bn of debt written off, and yet we now find ourselves in a renewed global debt crisis. This time, action must address the cyclical nature of debt crises. That coun ..read more

The prospect of home loan rates staying high for longer is not the tonic for lenders’ financial results it once was Mortgage borrowers who had been holding out for more affordable rates had their hopes dashed last week, as disappointing economic data raised the likelihood of borrowing costs staying higher for longer. A drop in the annual rate of inflation to 3.2% in March fell only just short of City expectations for a drop to 3.1%, but that was enough to prompt investors to trim their bets on an imminent cut to interest rates. Financial markets, which had until recently been pricing in a firs ..read more

Tentative offer follows four months of talks and could create new banking group with almost 5m customers Coventry Building Society has tentatively offered £780m to buy the Co-operative Bank from its hedge fund owners, in what could be the latest in a string of takeovers among UK lenders. The offer follows nearly four months of exclusive talks between the two lenders, which began in December. If a deal is completed, it would create a new high street challenger with almost 5 million customers and an £89bn balance sheet ..read more

Lloyds Bank says more than 600 of its customers have been tricked by fraudsters so far A rise in fraud cases involving Taylor Swift fans desperate to buy tickets to her sold-out UK shows has prompted Lloyds Bank to issue an “urgent warning” after more than 600 of its customers were scammed. With the superstar due to arrive in Europe next month, the high street bank said its data suggested that UK fans had lost more than £1m to fraudsters so far ..read more

Brazilian president Lula’s proposals have the backing of the World Bank. Now we need action All things considered, the world’s richest countries have emerged from the global pandemic in better shape than they could have imagined when Covid-19 first appeared just over four years ago. To be sure, the impact of lockdown and its aftermath has been painful, but the effects on poor countries have been far more severe ..read more