In today’s post the focus will be on the banking sector and, by focusing on three current issues, provides an overview of recent developments within this particular sector. By looking at the issues surrounding Barclays, HSBC, Standard Chartered, Lloyds, and RBS, a picture will be painted that details the need to ask much deeper questions about the role the banking sector plays within society and, perhaps more introspectively, the relationship between big business and humanity. Going through the issues in no particular order, the first stop in today’s journey takes us to Barclays, with the news emerging that Red Kite Management, the world’s largest metals hedge fund, is suing the British Bank for ‘ alleged market abuse in the copper market ’, which it claims has cost the company at least £650 million between 2010 and 2013. The company’s claim, according to documents filed with the High Court, is that the Bank allowed some of its staff to share confidential information with the Ba...

This morning, Lloyds Bank announced that its profits had more than doubled to £4.2 billion , primarily boosted by its reduction of capital reserves to protect against Payment Protection Insurance (PPI) pay-outs. This very short and reactive post looks at the response to the release of the figures, just over an hour ago, and contextualises the seemingly-positive news with that of the wider picture in the banking industry at the moment. The headline-grabbing figure will be the 158% surge in profits, which has not been seen by the bank since pre-Financial Crisis times. Yet, there was actually a drop in underlying profits and still the bank is setting aside resources to protect against the continued claims of negligence regarding the massive PPI scandal , although that provision has decreased from £4 billion last year to £1 billion this year. Recently, however, there have been a couple of news stories which sour this apparent success, both of which relate to issues recently comment...