(MENAFN- ProactiveInvestors - N.America)
Well it is 'Star Wars Day' (May 4) so needless to say there's a fair bit of forced marketing and meme's to sith through before we were able to get to the first order of business.
New York Stock Exchange has given up on a move for the London Stock Exchange Group designed to scupper UK markets operator's 21bn combination with Deutsche Boerse.
Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) which owns NYSE as well as major commodities exchanges no longer intends to make an offer for the LSE it said in a statement.
Elsewhere controversial money lender Wonga revealed its losses had more than doubled in 2015 because of tougher regulations and a big drop in the loan numbers.
The payday lender reported a 80.2mln loss for 2015 compared with 38mln in the year before.
About two years ago in 2014 the UK money regulator the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) imposed new regulations designed to stem booming short-term lending operations like those operated by Wonga.
Payday loans as they are referred to see high rates of interest charged over relatively small amounts of money lent of over a short period of time. The FCA rules limited 'roll overs' of debt into new short-term loans and clamped down on charges levied by the lenders.
Another much bigger lender was back in the spotlight as Barclays apparently turned the clock back by around a decade with a 'no deposit' mortgage which allows customers to borrow 5.5 times their income.
It apparently makes Barclays Britain's first zero-deposit (or formerly referred to as 100%) mortgages since the collapse of Northern Rock in 2007 back in the early days of the financial crisis.
Given the near decade of hindsight this probably sounds an unlikely proposition. And indeed there is a considerable catch as the' deposit free' mortgage will be backed by the 'bank of mum and dad'.
To get the mortgage targeted squarely at first time buyers a parent or family member has to put down 10% of the property's value in a Barclay's savings account for at least three years.
In other trending news e-commerce behemoth Amazon has added more fire to the UK supermarket pyre with the announcement that it is reading an UK fresh food delivery service across the UK within the month.
It comes the same day that Sainsbury's profits fell short of market expectations (it reported underlying profit of 587mln on 25.8bn of revenue whilst analyst consensus forecasts had been for 613mln on 23.5bn).
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