Challenger bank OakNorth hits unicorn status as it grabs £154m to take its fintech global October 12, 2017 Money seems to be growing on the tree for OakNorth, a challenger bank which has just raised another £154m to take its proposition global. The business, which specialises in providing smaller loans to UK businesses, secured investment from Singapore's Clermont Group, Martin Hughes' asset management firm Toscafund and New York's Coltrane who have together bought [...]
Here are the targets the FTSE 100 has been set to improve the ethnic diversity of UK boards October 12, 2017 All-white FTSE 100 firms will be expected to have become a thing of the past come 2021, according to the final recommendations from a government-backed report into improving diversity of UK businesses. Over half of the FTSE 100 firms do not have any ethnic minorities on their board at all. The Parker Review Committee, headed [...]
The 19 UK towns most at risk of a house price bubble: Cleveland, Blackburn and Blackpool come top October 12, 2017 UK house prices may still be rising, but with the Bank of England on the brink of hiking interest rates, the market may be about to change trajectory. Now, by comparing lending levels with house price rises, new research has listed the UK towns and cities most at risk if lending conditions change. Mortgage broker [...]
Here’s why mass parcel drone deliveries are unlikely to take off in London October 11, 2017 The likes of Google and Amazon may be plugging investment into developing drone deliveries, but the capital isn't likely to be filled with them anytime soon. Not according to the professor of logistics at Kühne Logistics University, anyway. Alan McKinnon says there are a couple of key reasons why urban drone delivery looks set to [...]
Ranked: These are the happiest places to live in London October 11, 2017 Bad news, Londoners. For unless you're residing in Richmond upon Thames, you're not living in the happiest place in the capital. And while property site Rightmove has compiled the best places to live in the UK, five of the least happy places can be found in London. Still, Bromley and Camden residents can feel pretty [...]
Nobel Laureate Richard H. Thaler on the end of behavioural finance October 11, 2017 | City Talk Richard H. Thaler, the US economist who elevated the word ‘nudge’ to a political catchphrase, can now add ‘Nobel laureate’ to his impressive biography. In a statement, the Royal Swedish Academy said that Thaler, who won the 2017 prize in economics for his contributions to behavioural economics, “has incorporated psychologically realistic assumptions into analyses of economic [...]
University challenge: The £50,000 question October 11, 2017 The new university term is now in full swing, and you might be relieved that your child is on their way to becoming a fully-fledged adult. But for many young people and their parents, university doesn’t quite bring the independence they expect. Tuition fees have gone through the roof, with most British students now forking [...]
Australian financial services company to create 300 jobs in Edinburgh with global technology centre October 11, 2017 | City Talk Beginning life with some clever software on a computer in a kitchen table in the suburbs of Melbourne in the late 1970s, Computershare has since grown to employ 16,000 people and serve 125 million customers around the world. Despite this astronomical growth, the company has never lost its ‘start up’ culture of pushing the boundaries [...]
Former Shawbrook duo launch new investment firm for speciality finance businesses October 11, 2017 A duo from challenger bank Shawbrook have embarked on setting up a new investment firm, focused on companies in the speciality finance sector. Marc Sefton and Kieran McSweeney have founded Aquilam Capital, which will focus on investing and lending to businesses in the consumer and small to medium-sized enterprise (SME) finance niches and in the [...]
Upgrades for Northern and Jubilee Lines have been brought to a halt by Transport for London October 10, 2017 Planned upgrades for the Northern and Jubilee Lines have been paused by Transport for London (TfL), though train drivers' union Aslef says they will be cancelled entirely. TfL confirmed today that it is "temporarily pausing" plans to buy more trains for the two lines, but Aslef said that senior managers admitted in private that the [...]