Universities Business Challenge- Henley team reach final

If you live in the UK, you may have seen the Channel 4 television programme on 28th February this year (2013) entitled ‘Bank on Dave’. Burnley Savings and Loans to give it its other name, is a company (not a bank) which offers 5% ‘deposit’ rates to lenders and offers loans to those who cannot obtain funding from the high street banks. So how does Dave do this when the high street banks offer no interest at all or perhaps only ½ or 1%? In fact ‘Dave’ is one of a new breed of ‘brokers’ who simply introduce lenders and borrowers to each other. The key difference from banks is that banks have a balance sheet with a depositor contract on one side and a separate contract with its borrowers on the other whereas a peer to peer company has no such contracts and indeed is not even involved at all in borrowing or lending! This is because in P2P, lending contracts are directly between borrower and lenders and the P2P company does not take ‘deposits’ on to its own balance sheet or keep the loans its customers make on its balance sheet.

The weather couldn't dampen high spirits at the ICMA Centre last week as over 300 students celebrated their remarkable achievements. One student in particular had special reason to celebrate not only did he come top in his class thereby winning the MSc Academic Achievement Award but he was also awarded the Vetiva Prize. In total MSc International Securities, Investment and Banking student Chardin Wese Simen has won three awards this year including the CISI Stephen Cooke Award.

Some ten years ago almost to the day, a dramatic and unusual event occurred in the UK’s financial system: a run on a bank. The bank concerned was Northern Rock. ‘The Rock’ was formerly a building society and had converted to a plc in 1997 as part of the wave of building society demutualisations.