Good news for Scottish home buyers as RBS agrees to release mortgage funds

John Swinney, Scottish Cabinet Secretary with responsibility for Finance and Sustainable Growth welcomed the recent announcement that the Royal Bank of Scotland is committing to release £1.7billion worth of mortgages into the Scottish housing market during the next twelve. Swinney was enthousiastic about news claiming that it will be a major stepping stone in re-invigorating the property market north of the border.

Scottish Secretary, Jim Murphy was equally heartened by the news stating that it is the first positive indication that the government’s actions to return stability to the banking sector were starting to bear fruit. .

Includes in the lending package is £500milliom that is released through the Treasury’s Asset Protection Scheme, that was designed to increase levels of financial stability to British banks at the height of the global downturn.

A spokesman for RBS announced that the bank was committed to releasing further funds in an effort to push the housing market in Scotland forward, in line with customer demand. The bank stated their commitment to offer loans of up to 90% to help first-time buyers get their first foot on to the property ladder.

There was a definite mood of optimism on the FTSE yesterday, with the financial sector in particular making up lost ground.

London was boosted by a blistering start to trading on Wall Street this afternoon, with the Dow rising in dramatically in value after

Ironically, shares in the London Stock Exchange (LSE) whilst rising yesterday (32 pence to 402p) have dropped by almost 25% since the beginning of 2009. In happier times, the LSE was a real hot potato, often valued at around 2000p

On a day that saw U.K. stocks rise as high as they have done for the last four quarters, investors seemed to squeezing out a few smiles here and there as the banking sector particularly showed signs of a rebound.

On that wake of optimism, the UK banks certainly took up the baton, with shares in Barclays and HSBC in particular showing healthy increases.

Barclays jumped by almost ten percent, and HSBC by fourteen

The FTSE 100 finished down -0.76% (28.08 points to 3687.15) and the 250 also stuttered a little down 0.04% (2.39 at 5952.41)

On the money markets, Sterling remained stable.

Pound/US dollar 1.3741

Pound/Euro 1.0844

Pound/Japanese Yen 135.39

Pound/Swiss Franc 1.5999

On Tuesday, US stocks enjoyed their best day of 2009 as banking giant Citigroup announced a considerable profit for the first two months of the year.

The news pushed shares in Citigroup 37% higher, and banking stocks led a surge on the US markets.

The Dow Jones index closed up a remarkable 379.44 points at 6,926.49. NASDAQ rose also 89.64 points to 1358.28

In New York, it is expected that disgraced US financier Bernard Madoff will submit a guilty plea to orchestrating a $50bn (£35bn) fraud, according to his lawyer. .

Madoff will plead guilty to several counts of fraud when he appears before a Judge on Thursday. Not expecting a warm welcome, Madoff who is 70 years old is expected to face a prison sentence running into hundreds of years if convicted on all the eleven charges he is being accused of, including three counts of money laundering, securities fraud, mail fraud, wire fraud, false statements and perjury among others. Recently there has been some conjecture that the colossal sum of around $ 50 billion that Madoff had swindled from his unsuspecting clients could be a lot lower.

Asian markets took up where WE and European markets left off with Japan’s Nikkei index rising 4.6% to 7367.12 with banking shares leading the revival.

Other Far Eastern markets performed strongly, with Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index up 2.9% at 12,034.77, and South Korea’s Kopsi index climbing 3%.

The more pessimistic Asian stock analysts pour water on the coals by announcing that he rally was little more than a temporary respite from recent heavy falls in global markets.

In China, there were not too many happy faces as news that exports had plunged by more than a quarter in February from the same period a year ago. The world’s third-largest economy is facing a considerable and continuous drop in demand for their goods.

China’s trade surplus stood at $4.8bn for February, compared with $39.1bn for the previous month.

The continuing global economic downturn means that demand for Chinese goods around the world will continue to suffer, according the Chinese government.

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Tags: Credit Crunch, Hyper Inflation, Money Management, Mortgage, Mortgages, Royal Bank of Scotland, UK Banks