Property taxes send UK to ‘second-bottom’ of global rankings October 20, 2025 The UK is second-bottom of global competitiveness rankings for property taxes, fresh analysis has shown, undermining Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ ambition to “back the builders, not the blockers”. The Tax Foundation’s International Tax Competitiveness Index placed the UK at 32nd out of 38 in a damning indictment of HMRC’s complicated rules and a higher burden preventing [...]
Secure Trust Bank, Bank of Ireland up motor finance provisions October 20, 2025 Secure Trust Bank and the Bank of Ireland have added themselves to a growing list of businesses upping their provisions ahead of a flurry of claims expected in connection with the motor finance scandal. Following the publication of the UK finance watchdog’s review into the saga, Secure Trust Bank said it had more than tripled [...]
Cutting affordable housing quotas is a slap in the face for Labour voters October 20, 2025 If Labour is no longer in favour of building affordable housing, what exactly is the party for, asks James Ford.
B&M: City broker ‘not concerned’ about retailer despite turmoil October 20, 2025 City broker Panmure Liberum has reassured investors about a serious slide in B&M’s share price, arguing that it’s based on a ‘one-time error’ and doesn’t suggest underlying trouble. B&M surprised markets this morning when it released a trading statement showing a significant accounting error and the related departure of its chief financial officer. The FTSE [...]
Inflation set to hit double Bank of England’s target October 20, 2025 The UK’s isolated struggles with price growth are set to hit a new milestone on Wednesday as consumer price index (CPI) inflation will surge to double the Bank of England’s target rate. In more troubling news for the Treasury and the Bank’s interest rate-setters, inflation is forecast to hit four per cent in the year [...]
AWS outage: Amazon says recovery is underway October 20, 2025 A swathe of apps and online services went down on Monday morning, including Zoom, Slack and Coinbase. This follows a global Amazon Web Services (AWS) outage, with knock on effects hitting millions of users of thousands of apps and websites. Amazon has said that services are “seeing significant signs of recovery”, with Lloyds Bank saying [...]
Could FTSE 100 giant Sage jump ship to the Nasdaq? October 20, 2025 Software giant Sage has become a rare beast in recent years – a highly valued technology company still listed on the London Stock Exchange. Worth around £11bn currently, the Newcastle-headquartered group is a firm member of the FTSE 100 index and showing no signs of its growth slowing down. But while Sage has stuck to [...]
KPMG: Half of banks experiencing uptick in Gen Z staff quitting October 20, 2025 Gen Z banking employees are leaving the industry at faster rates than other professions, opting for start up jobs and remote work instead. That’s according to a new KPMG survey of bosses in the sector, which has found that almost half of financial services firms have experienced an uptick in younger employees quitting. The consultancy [...]
Hotel Chocolat tastes sweet success of quitting London October 20, 2025 How Hotel Chocolat has performed since being acquired by Mars for more than £500m in July 2023 has been revealed for the first time. The Hertfordshire-headquartered business quit the London Stock Exchange after being taken over in a £534m deal. The deal, which at the time represented a 169.8 per cent premium on its 139p [...]
Plus500 boss: Scrapping shares tax would boost market efficiency October 20, 2025 Scrapping stamp duty on shares would help improve market efficiency and bolster the health of London’s capital markets, the boss of Plus500 has said after a jump in customers’ deposit sizes helped the trading platform beat analyst expectations. David Zruia told City AM that trading volumes would invariably go up if the Chancellor heeded growing [...]