New month, new show

October begins with the formal opening of the Supreme Court, bringing the UK in line with many other countries across the world. Does transparency reign boss in corporate finance this week though?

Maybe, if the BAE Systems revelations are anything to go by. The Serious Fraud Office is set to pursue bribery charges against Europe’s largest defence contract in relation to overseas defence contracts. Settlement talks have been ongoing, but appear to have broken down. According to reports, the SFO would ask the attorney general for permission to take action under the Prevention of Corruption Act 2001. It’s certainly a story to keep track of.

The public desire for transparency of process and action seems to have been a part of Bank of America CEO Kenneth Lewis’ very recent retirement announcement. Lewis had been dogged by a sequence of investigations regarding the Bank’s acquisition of Merrill Lynch, with his reputation regularly hit at by government bailouts and credit losses.

Symbolically, Lewis’ departure sees the company making “a clean break”, according to portfolio manager for Greenwood Capital Associates, Walter Todd.

Moving back across the Atlantic again, a survey by the Bank of England showed that lenders expect credit to become more easily available to households and businesses by the end of the year. “The impact of the economic outlook and prospects for property prices on credit availability had stabilised,” the survey said.

Rising house prices seems to have catalysed mortgage lending, while for corporate lending, lower funding costs and the return of the drive to increase market share were cited as guiding lights. The developments are notably transparent to an evermore interested public.

As ever, though, it’s not all positive. Questions have been posed as to the effectiveness of the Bank of England’s quantitative easing policy, rapidly met with a response along the lines of “yes, in the long-term and across a wide geographical spread”. Not a direct quote, of course.

David Miles, one of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee’s newest members, offered the following: “QE is having an impact and that is relevant to economic conditions right across the country, [not just in]... financial markets in London but in high streets and factories and homes throughout the UK.”

He continued: “[QE will]…help us travel on a path towards a more sustainable banking structure – one where reliance upon bank debt by the private sector will likely be lower and where the banks are better capitalised and better able to handle fluctuations in their sources of funding.”

Let’s keep watching, shall we?