Memo to staff reveals dropping of restriction, allowing payouts worth up to 10 times bankers’ salaries

Barclays has become the first UK bank to formally lift the cap on bankers’ bonuses originally imposed by the EU, opening the door for staff to receive 10 times their salaries in payouts.

The announcement was made through an internal memo to staff on Thursday, four months after shareholders at Barclays’ AGM approved the move to drop the measure, which previously limited bonuses to two times bankers’ salaries.

Metro Bank faces questions over safeguards and why victim was allowed to borrow such a big sum

The family of a deaf man who was groomed by a gang into taking out a £28,000 business loan has demanded to know how a vulnerable person, with virtually no assets, could be marched into a Metro Bank, and allowed to borrow such a huge sum.

Peter James*, who has special educational needs, and who only communicates through British Sign Language, was being chased by the bank’s debt collectors, and facing possible bankruptcy, before Guardian Money became involved.

With spotlight on investments behind banks, we ask whether three top providers still offer a good deal

Protests outside Barclays branches and the recent arguments over Baillie Gifford’s sponsorship of book festivals have put the spotlight on the investments behind big banking institutions. For most people, choosing an ethical home for their current account will be the easiest way to ensure their money is being used in an environmentally friendly or socially responsible way.

The consumer group Which? names three “eco providers” for current accounts : the Co-operative Bank, Nationwide building society and Triodos Bank. These three also do well on the green money website MotherTree, which has ranked major UK banks on how much £10,000 in a current account contributes in carbon emissions. At the bottom of its table – so therefore the winner – is Triodos, followed by the Co-op Bank and then Nationwide.

Julia Hoggett awarded damehood for services to business, while HSBC chair Mark Tucker receives knighthood

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The head of the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and the chair of HSBC are among the business leaders to be recognised this year in King Charles’s birthday honours list.

Julia Hoggett, a former banker who has been the chief executive of the London Stock Exchange since 2021, has been awarded a damehood for her services to business and finance.

We are appalled by the humanitarian tragedy unfolding in Gaza. Activists must not threaten my colleagues as a result of a disinformation campaign against us

Since last October, I have watched with increasing sorrow the humanitarian tragedy unfolding in the Middle East. Within Barclays, a global bank of which I am the chief executive, we have been deeply sympathetic about the overall suffering in the region. We have educated ourselves, contributed to supportive charities and consoled all our own colleagues who have experienced loss.

During this period, there has also been a campaign of disinformation against Barclays. The crux of the allegation is that we finance defence manufacturers and invest in them. Let me be clear about what we do and don’t do. Like other banks in the UK, we finance some companies making defence equipment, alongside their civilian products.

Some users say they were forced into overdrafts because past transactions were repeated

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Co-operative Bank customers have hit out at the lender after a glitch led to payments being taken twice from some business accounts.

Customers said they had been pushed into their overdrafts because of the problem, which has resulted in previous payments, sometimes made several weeks before, being duplicated.

Codes of conduct are on the rise, and have a focus on reputational risk as well as on harassment

When more than 1,300 lending bosses, regulators and MPs descended on Grosvenor House hotel on Park Lane in London for a black-tie dinner in late February, they arrived informed.

Invitees to the Financing & Leasing Association event had been handed an “annual dinner code of conduct” telling guests about a new policy on discrimination and sexual harassment. The trade body would “not tolerate any such behaviour and will, along with our event agency, take immediate action to stop it”.

It’s regularly being created and destroyed – and economic models that don’t reflect that fact are not even slightly useful

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In the classic 1946 film It’s a Wonderful Life, depositors demand their money from a small-town building society. Its manager, George Bailey (in an unforgettable performance by James Stewart), explains that the money is not in the building society’s vault; it has been lent to other people in the town. “The money’s not there,” Bailey pleads. “Your money’s in Joe’s house … And in the Kennedy house, and Mrs Macklin’s house, and a hundred others.”

Bailey’s explanation reflects a widespread idea of how banks work.

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Exclusive: Whistleblower raised concerns about security of in-branch coin-counter software

The Bank of England is examining claims that the high street lender Metro Bank allegedly put customers’ data at risk by misusing software at the centre of a long-running legal dispute.

Last month, the central bank’s whistleblowing team was contacted by a person raising concerns about the integrity and security of software used to connect Metro Bank’s in-branch coin-counters – known as Magic Money Machines – to customer accounts.