Brexit trade deal: City lobbyist hits out at Michel Barnier’s hard talk on Brexit trade deal December 19, 2017 The EU’s chief Brexit negotiator took the shine off the City’s Christmas party season as he suggested a bespoke deal could not be agreed for London’s financial services sector. “There is no place [for financial services]. There is not a single trade agreement that is open to financial services. It doesn’t exist,” he told the [...]
UK tops Forbes’ list as the best country for business in 2018 December 19, 2017 Britain has been crowned the best country in the world for business in 2018 for the first time ever, even in the face of uncertainties around Brexit, according to Forbes’ annual ranking. The UK took the top spot out of 153 nations and jumped up from fifth place last year, scoring particularly well on technological [...]
Could a robot replace Jose Mourinho? The growing presence of artificial intelligence and machine learning in football December 19, 2017 If you pay attention to the countless academic studies devoted to the subject or the dire prophecies from Elon Musk or Stephen Hawking, an artificial intelligence (AI) age is rapidly approaching that promises to make most of our jobs redundant. A McKinsey and Company report published earlier this year estimated that more than half of [...]
London Stock Exchange: The big end-of-year corporate fight ended with barely a punch thrown December 19, 2017 We were promised the corporate equivalent of a heavyweight encounter in the Ali/Frasier mould: the activist challenger going into the ring to knock the crown off the head of one of the City’s biggest firms. Finally, after months of to-and-fro, briefings and rumours about the London Stock Exchange (LSE), it came down to this: a [...]
Gocompare share price rises after splashing £36.5m of its spondoolicks on voucher code website MyVoucherCodes December 19, 2017 Price comparison website Gocompare today snapped up online voucher code website MyVoucherCodes for £36.5m. Gocompare is hoping the acquisition will be transformational by attracting customers on a daily rather than annual basis. Boss Matthew Crummack said MyVoucherCodes would play a “valuable role [in the firm’s] ambition to become the ‘go-to’ place for savvy savers to [...]
MMC Ventures has just joined a $15m funding round for consumer services artificial intelligence company DigitalGenius December 19, 2017 The robots will soon be taking over call centres, as a company which develops consumer-focused artificial intelligence today nabbed almost $15m (£11.2m) of funding. San Francisco-based DigitalGenius, which works with companies including Unilever, KLM Airlines and Eurostar, has raised $14.75m of series A funding from a number of firms including London’s MMC Ventures. The business, [...]
Hargreaves Lansdown’s five stocks to watch in 2018: From life insurance to Irn Bru to that well-known heritage check December 19, 2017 Investment platform Hargreaves Lansdown has set out its stocks to watch in 2018. And where its eyes are straying, others' are likely to follow. While some asset managers are predicting the return of volatility in what has been a relatively uneventful year for the UK stock market, Hargreaves Lansdown's equity analysts spread their bets across [...]
Oxford Street businesses are up in arms over the road’s planned pedestrianisation December 19, 2017 Thought that businesses and residents would be happy about the plan to turn Oxford Street into a car-free zone? Apparently not, as groups in the area have launched a protest against the mooted pedestrianisation. Banning cars and buses from the infamous shopping district will lead to more pollution and gridlocked local roads, according to local [...]
The Electoral Commission has fined the Lib Dems and the Remain campaign over spending December 19, 2017 The Liberal Democrats and the official Remain campaign group have been slapped with fines over how they recorded their spending during the EU referendum. The Lib Dems were handed an £18,000 fine over a failure to deliver a complete and accurate spending return. The Electoral Commission, which handed out the fines, said in some cases [...]
Estonia’s Estcoin cryptocurrency plans are moving forward with global initial coin offering (ICO) hub ambitions December 19, 2017 An eastern European country which made history by introducing the first ever virtual residency has revealed that it will move forward with plans for creating its own version of bitcoin. Estonia was the first country to seriously float the idea of its own cryptocurreny or digital token, called Estcoin, in what’s known as an initial [...]