PPI claims costs banks nearly £12bn as FCA finds “significant room for improvement” in complaint handling September 25, 2013 Regulator the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has announced that total redress paid out now stands at nearly £12bn. A review by the FCA has looked into the complaints handling of 18 medium and small sized firms. The FCA has found that of those 18 firms, 12 have "serious problems with complaint handling decisions and communications [...]
UK becomes more attractive place to invest as foreign ownership of shares passes 50 per cent September 25, 2013 (ONS) UK share ownership has marginally increased to 10.7 per cent representing improvement from the record lows of 2010. The UK stock-market was valued at £1,756.3bn down from £1,777.5bn at the end of 2010. The UK however remains attractive to foreign investors with rest of the world ownership standing at 53.2 per cent up significantly [...]
Trouble ahead for Tesco as JP Morgan downgrades supermarket September 25, 2013 Tesco have been downgraded to underweight by J.P. Morgan. The supermarket is expected to underpeform due to structural changes in the UK food industry which may have a particularly damaging effect on Tesco. According to JP Morgan's Jaime Vazquez: In our view, pricing architecture is an industry problem, but is of most concern to Tesco [...]
London pulls up average rent rise September 25, 2013 Figures published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) have shown that private rents have gone up over the past year. In the 12 months to August 2013 private rental prices paid by tenants rose by 1.2 per cent. Excluding London, private rents in Great Britain rose by 0.8 per cent. Prices increased the most [...]
London women least likely to be employed in Great Britain September 25, 2013 The employment of women is rising, while the employment of men over 40 is in decline, according to new figures from the Office for National Figures. Despite that fall in the employment of older men, men above 22 still have consistently higher employment rates than women. In London and Northern Ireland rates of women in [...]
Miner Anglo American settles 23 lung disease claims September 25, 2013 Anglo American South Africa (AASA) has announced the settlement of 23 stand-alone silicosis claims, from the period 2004 to 2009 (release). The miner says that it is one of a number of companies facing class action litigation that involve thousands of former mine workers. AASA denies any liability and will continue to defend against those [...]
Positive opinion from Italian consumers September 25, 2013 Consumer opinion in Italy rose in September with consumer confidence coming in at 101.1, following August's figure of 98.4 and expectations of a marginal increase to 98.5.
Concern over Portuguese banks as second bailout looms September 25, 2013 Worries continue to mount over the health of the Portuguese banking sector. Analysts at Nomura find that the Portuguese banks underperformed the sector by nine per cent. When compared to other banks in the banks in the troubled Mediterranean companies the situation looks even more dire. When compared to Spain underperformance of the Portuguese banking [...]
Laura Ashley sees retail sales fall owing to variable weather September 25, 2013 Retailer Laura Ashley has seen like-for-like retail sales fall 2.2 per cent in the first half of this year. In the 26 weeks to 27 July 2013, the company reported that underlying pretax profit, excluding exceptional items, fell by £0.5m to £7.8m. Total group sales were down 5.6 per cent at £137.3m which, the company's [...]
Amazon unveils new Kindle Fire HDX tablets September 25, 2013 Amazon has unveiled two new Kindles. The Kindle Fire HDX includes a new feature which allows users to open an video chat with a tech-support to instruct the user how to operate the new device. Chief executive Jeff Bezos, speaking to reporters at Amazon headquarters in Seattle said of the new feature named the 'May Day [...]