Do you want a good return for you cash ISA ?............

Savings: Intelligent Finance bucks Isa rate trend

Intelligent Finance, part of the Lloyds Banking Group, increased the rate on its cash Isa this weekend to 2.75%. After a series of rate cuts and product withdrawals by banks and building societies over the past fortnight, this is now one of the highest rates for a cash Isa that does not require notice for withdrawal or savers to tie up their money for a year or more. Intelligent Finance will also increase the rate on its isaver account to 2.85%, putting it among the top instant-access savings accounts alongside Principality, which has a new online savings account paying 2.85% - including a 1.2% introductory bonus rate for the first 12 months. Barnsley building society, which is now part of Yorkshire building society, has launched a competitive savings account paying 2.5%. The new account is only available online, and has a paperless application process, for which actual signatures are not required.

From The Sunday Times -- June 14, 2009

Aussies eye up Lloyds funds -- Iain Dey

ONE of Australias biggest banks is considering a bid for a 75 billlion chunk of Lloyds Banking Groups fund-management arm.

Commonwealth Bank of Australia, which has a market value of close to 30 billion, is one of a number of bidders circling Insight Investment Managements third-party funds business.

Schroders, the blue-chip fund manager, and private equity groups Hellman & Friedman and Advent International have also been invited to table first-round bids for the business, which is expected to fetch between 200m and 300m.

The auction process follows a review of Lloyds asset-management and insurance business carried out by advisers from Deutsche Bank.

Lloyds has two life-assurance brands and two fund-management businesses following its takeover of HBOS last year. Although the bank has said publicly that it plans to merge the operations, a series of disposals are expected.

The Insight funds are believed to be the only part of the division that is being actively touted to potential bidders by Lloyds.

The auction is being conducted discreetly, with only a limited number of parties invited to tender, according to industry sources.

The Insight team, led by Abdallah Nauphal, who was recently promoted to be managing director of Lloyds asset-management arm, has appointed Fenchurch Advisory Partners to examine its options.

Nauphal is said to be willing to work on a bid with one of the private-equity firms to structure a management buy-out deal.

The Insight business being sold includes a large portion of fixed-income funds and specialist liability-driven investment products aimed at pension funds. The funds represent about half of Insights assets under management, with the remainder made up of 80 billion of Clerical Medical life insurance funds.

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/banking_and_finance/article6493408.ece

More RESEARCH pays dividends with old news (late yesterday)......
From the TELEGRAPH -- 13 Jun 2009

Lloyds Bank hit by Obama tax purge
Banking group drops American customers in UK ahead of costly proposals to stamp out tax evasion

By Louise Armitstead

President Obama is planning a crackdown on tax evasion Lloyds Banking Group is ditching American customers based in Britain pending a crackdown on international tax evasion planned by President Barack Obama.

This week American private client account-holders at Lloyds's received letters informing them of an "important change in policy regarding clients who are resident, domiciled or linked to the United States by property or asset holdings". They were told the bank had "no choice" but to "cease acting as your investment manager."

Barack Obama attacked on all sides over release of terror memosOne letter sent to Bank of Scotland's portfolio management division, which is now part of Lloyds, said: "The USA has a mature regulatory environment governed by its Securities and Exchange Commission. These regulations mean that we are not licensed to manage portfolios for US clients."

The letter added: "Unfortunately we cannot offer an equivalent service from within Lloyds Banking Group." Clients have been advised to transfer their assets.

One recipient, who has lived in the UK for over 25 years, said: "After all this time, I've suddenly been told I must take my money elsewhere and I don't understand why. Now I'm scared that other banks won't take me on either."

In its letters to clients, Lloyds has not referred to specific legislation. But last month, The Sunday Telegraph reported that British banks and stockbrokers were threatening to close down accounts held by American citizens due to concerns over new international tax proposals could make it too expensive for them to service the clients.

The proposals, which were unveiled in the President's first budget, have been designed to clamp down on American tax evaders abroad. But bank bosses say that in practice they could be asked to take on the task of collecting American taxes at a cost and legal liability that make servicing the clients inexpedient. The rules have not yet been finalised and are still subject to debate in Congress.

So far Lloyds has started dropping its "mass affluent" clients who have investment portfolios of up to a few hundred thousand pounds but that its "high-net-worth individuals" are not yet effected.

A source said: "Until the new rules are properly explained, we don't know how expensive they will be to implement. But it's clear that Lloyds believes that any extra cost to the system will be too much when it comes to the mass affluent."

The letters also contained four comprehensive descriptions of the bank's definition of clients that are effected. These included clients that hold green cards, pay American taxes, are American domiciled or even those where there is "any indication" that a client spent more time in the US than "normal holidays currently or in the past or future."

President Obama's proposals are built on the so-called Qualified Intermediary system introduced in 2001 that were intended to ensure Americans paid the correct tax wherever they were domiciled. Under the rules, foreign financial institutions that handle American money have to fill in a US tax form on behalf of the client that has to be audited too.

In return, the banks receive a QI seal of approval as a qualified intermediary. Bank bosses say that under plans to extend the system, which includes paying for the figures to be audited twice, the costs and legal liabilities of the system will soar.

APCIMS, the trade body whose members manage 400bn of Britain's wealth and employ 25,000 people, sent a letter to the US Treasury's Internal Revenue Service (IRS) complaining that the "unfair'' proposals represent "no benefit but . . . significant cost'' to its members.

Last night Lloyds declined to comment.

Where is everybody?

Are you not able to log in as some complain?

Not so long ago LLOY was the only stock on the FTSE on the BLUE

I find a snip saying so ...........

MORNING REPORT:
Headline shares were sharply lower in early deals today, dragged down by tumbling commodity stocks as metal prices
weaken on falling demand in China and crude oil slumps over a dollar a barrel, with Lloyds the sole blue gainer.

LONDON, June 15 (Reuters) - Lloyds TSB Bank, part of Lloyds Banking Group

(LLOY.L), plans a 2016 euro benchmark bond, IFR reported on Monday.

BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank HSBC and Lloyds itself are to manage the issue, said IFR Markets, a Thomson Reuters online news and market analysis service.

Lloyds is rated A+ by Standard & Poor's, Aa3 by Moody's Investors Service and AA- by Fitch Ratings. (Editing by Will Waterman)

More signs of - green shoots -

G8 ministers see crisis easing

G8 finance ministers signalled cautious optimism on the weekend that the worst of the global financial crisis might be over and began discussing exit strategies to counter the threat of inflation, reports the FT. Stress tests for banks were also discussed, aides said, but rifts over the issue - with France and Germany resisting calls for more transparency over results

Rates may rise later this year, warns CBI

The CBI has sharply upgraded its growth forecasts and given warning that the Bank of England may begin
raising interest rates by the end of the year, much sooner than widely expected.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/recession/5535590/Rates-may-rise-later-this-year-warns-CBI.html

        CLOSING MARKET REPORT

Lloyds Banking Group was the best of only three blue chip gainers at the close, rising 1.5p at 66.8p.

Other banks slid in line with the market trend, with Royal Bank of Scotland down 2p at 37.9p and Barclays off 13.25p at 278.75p.

Closing at 66.8p ......                so much better tomorrow ........       

.......... and YES another rise today, though the FTSE is now level

EARLY MARKET REPORT

Banking shares put in a mixed performance, with Royal Bank of Scotland the best of them, ahead 0.5p at 38.4p, while Lloyds added 0.7p at 67.5p. On the downside, Barclays slipped 0.5p at 278.25p and HSBC fell 2.5p at 527.5p.

UP to 68.50p +1.70p now

The UPTREND continues from the low 60p after the PLACING

And has reached 70p

Someone is buying, volume to 70.5 millions and share price at 70.50p

A finished price of 69.30p due to the last UT at this price, but the closing spread was 69.80 / 69.90p,
so very strong till the finished and the good trend continues

From The Herald about the 4bn rights issue take up ..........

Lloyds 4bn rights issue could now be doubled -- TIM SHARP - City Editor -- June 17 2009

Such is the demand for shares in Lloyds Banking Group that it could have as much as doubled its recent 4bn rights issue Lord Paul Myners, the City Minister, said yesterday.

Myners, financial services secretary to the Treasury, yesterday noted "there is a real appetite out there" for the new shares issued by Lloyds to raise cash to buy back preference shares issued to the government.

"I suspect that double the amount would have been taken up if the government had been willing to sell more shares at that time," he added.

The bank, owner of Edinburgh-based HBOS since January, raised 4bn from shareholders in a rights issue that completed last week allowing it to pay off preference shares charging 12% and giving it the opportunity to restart dividend payments to ordinary shareholders.

Myners told a British Property Federation conference that UK Financial Investments, which manages the government's 43.4% stake in Lloyds and 70% holding in Royal Bank of Scotland, would sell its shares gradually.

"I think a series of sales through a variety of different institutions into different markets is likely to be recommended by the board of UK Financial Investments when they address this issue."

RBS chief executive Stephen Hester said he expected the RBS stake to be sold down "over a number of years". "My goal is that within five years the government is down to zero. But I do not control that goal," he added.

UKFI is thought to be considering issuing a convertible bond. This would effectively allow it to sell RBS and Lloyds stock at a premium to the prevailing share price, potentially profiting on the investments before the shares recover to the price the government paid for its stakes.

From the INDEPENDENT - Market Report

Market Report: Bullish broker helps Lloyds strengthen

Banks were in focus last night, with Lloyds rising to 69.3p, up 3.7 per cent, or 2.5p, after a broker weighed in with a bullish assessment of the sector's prospects.

Redburn Partners said shares in the three UK-focused banks Lloyds, Royal Bank of Scotland, which edged up by 0.2p to 38.1p, and Barclays, which eased slightly to 277p, down 1.75p were ripe for the picking as current valuations were pricing in "a very bearish scenario, which includes five years of global deflation and poor capital markets operating conditions".

Its own "base case" scenario, on the other hand, suggests the three are cheap, with possible of upsides of about 50 per cent for RBS, about 70 per cent for Lloyds and, following the sale of Barclays Global Investors, about 90 per cent for Barclays.

"The upside still averages 25 per cent in an inflationary scenario. Even the most dangerous deflationary scenario is priced in," the broker said, adding that its analysis underlined two things, namely "that the economics of UK banks remain attractive in all but the most dismal of economic outcomes, and how little credence the market currently gives to this counter-intuitive outcome".

Morning broker moves round-up

RBS cut to underperform from neutral at Macquarie.

Lloyds upped to neutral from underperform at Macquarie.

        JOKE OF THE DAY

And only because of legal action .......... string him UP

Sir Fred Offers To Cut Pension

The controversial former Chief Executive of the Royal Bank Of Scotland,
Sir Fred Goodwin is offering to cut his pension by 200,000 a year ,
according to the BBC.

It is understood that Sir Fred offered to cut his pension when faced
with the possibility of legal action from RBS.

Having already taken a lump sum of 2.7m from his pension fund, the
offer to cut his pension by 200,000 a year would leave Sir Fred
with approximately 340,000 as a residual pension.

        MIDDAY MARKET REPORT

Lloyds Banking Group was an early blue chip leader, up 1.8p at 68.9p, while Royal Bank of Scotland
ticked up 0.2p at 37.2p and Asia-facing Standard Chartered added 19p at 1,170p.

Other banks fared less well, with Barclays off 7.5p at 262.5p and HSBC down 8.25p at 518.25p.