Finance Matters

Persimmon Homes managed 8,976 legal completions in 2009, compared with 10,202 in 2008, with an average selling price of £160,513 (down from £172,994 last year).
However, Britain’s largest house builder says it has a strong forward sales book of around £900 million, up 29% on 2008.
Ninety new sites are scheduled to open in the first half [...]

London-based bank Standard Chartered today announced a rise in pre-tax profits – meeting analysts expectations.
The bank, which has a strong presence in Asia, said pre-tax profits in 2009 were £3.4 billion ($5.15 billion), a rise of 13% on 2008 figures.
Meanwhile, revenue was up 9% to £10.14 billion ($15.18 billion).
However, while many other banks have opted [...]

In its second six-monthly set of complaints data relating to individual financial firms, the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) has today said complaints rose by 18% in the second half of 2009.
According to the FOS, it received 82,136 complaints between 1 July and 31 December 2009 – a rise of 12,295 compared with the first half [...]