Today’s need-to-know storiesBarclays blocked MFS transactions months before collapse
Barclays began blocking transactions linked to Market Financial Solutions months before the UK mortgage provider collapsed last week amid allegations of fraud, according to an FT report.
The lender began blocking certain transactions for MFS in late 2025 before freezing its accounts in January, people familiar with the matter said. Barclays is understood to have built up roughly £600mn of exposure to MFS through lending and banking services.
Court documents filed by entities linked to MFS cited “real and serious concerns about mismanagement”, “serious irregularities in the management of the key bank accounts” and “a significant shortfall” in collateral that could total £238mn.
Financial irregularities relating to its collateral were first spotted by asset-backed lending specialist Castlelake, which began monitoring some of its portfolio more closely in response to fears of poor underwriting standards, the FT’s sources said.
They added that Castlelake was concerned by the slow and limited responses from MFS to requests for further information.
UBS board weighs extending Ermotti’s term, say reports
UBS’s board is considering whether to extend Sergio Ermotti’s tenure as chief executive beyond 2027 as the bank confronts tougher capital proposals from the Swiss government, according to Swiss newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung.
Ermotti, who returned to lead UBS following its 2023 state-backed takeover of Credit Suisse, had been expected to step down by mid-2027, although no formal departure date has been set.
In June, the Swiss government proposed capital reforms designed to prevent a repeat of the Credit Suisse collapse. The measures could require UBS to hold up to $24bn in additional capital and tighten the rules on what qualifies as core equity capital.
Citing people familiar with the matter, NZZ reported that the board, led by chair Colm Kelleher, wants Ermotti to stay on to oversee the bank’s response to the planned regulatory changes.
Former Goldman chief urges banks to prepare for major market shock
Lloyd Blankfein has said the finance industry should plan on the assumption that a major market shock is coming, warning that the relative calm since the 2008 financial crisis has encouraged complacency and could make the next downtown more severe.
The former Goldman Sachs chief executive told the FT in an interview that the absence of a significant “shakeout” since the global financial crisis had left investors less fearful and more prone to risk taking.
“The longer it takes between reckonings, there is a potential for a more severe reckoning,” he said.
His remarks come amid growing unease over the disruptive impact of AI and looser underwriting standards among non-bank lenders that have expanded rapidly over the past two decades.
Ex-Moelis banker strikes deal over sprawling insider trading scheme
A former Moelis investment banker is set to return to the US from France to plead guilty over his role in a sprawling international insider trading scheme, according to a Bloomberg report citing a court filing.
Benjamin Taylor, charged in 2019, was accused of passing confidential deal information to a network that operated across the US, UK, France, Switzerland, Greece, Israel and Hong Kong.
Several members of the ring, including a former Goldman Sachs banker, have since been convicted.
In a letter to a New York federal judge, Taylor’s lawyer, Celeste Koeleveld, said he wished to “put the past behind him and accept responsibility for his conduct”.
Under a deal with prosecutors, he will plead guilty to one count of conspiracy. In exchange, prosecutors will seek a sentence of no more than a year and a day, reduced by two months already served in Monaco.
Taylor has also agreed to settle a related case brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission.