Zlota 44 is the tallest residential building in Warsaw and it’s hoping to catch the eye of Western investors February 25, 2016 For millionaire investors, the obvious place to buy for profit is in one of Europe’s great cities. But the bright lights of London, Paris and Berlin may be blinding buyers to smaller pockets of investment that have big potential. One of these is Poland. After years of building it up, the Poles now boast the largest [...]
Capita share price falls after investors take fright at 50 per cent pre-tax profit slump February 25, 2016 Shares in professional services firm Capita, one of the country's major outsourcing companies, have slumped by more than five per cent this morning after a mixed set of results spooked investors. Capita revealed that profit before tax at the business dropped to £112.1m, from £292.4m in 2014 after the business took hits from business exits and impairment [...]
Budget 2016 UK pension changes explained: What pension reforms might chancellor George Osborne have up his sleeve on 16 March? Will Waspi have any state pension joy? February 25, 2016 It's the question on everybody's lips (well, everybody at City A.M. anyway): what will pensions in the UK look like post-Budget 2016? Several suggestions have been bandied around, but which ones might you want to start banking on and which can you probably afford to ignore? Relief rates slashed for higher earners Bad news if you pay [...]
George Osborne’s relentless attack on hardworking savers is making pensions freedoms meaningless February 25, 2016 At first, George Osborne seemed pension savers’ best friend. ‘Pension freedoms’ – the ability to take money from pensions however you like – were probably the only pension good news most can remember. Then came the sneaky U-turn. Osborne hasn’t taken away pension freedoms, but appears intent on making them meaningless. If he has it his way, there [...]
How challenger banks and P2P lenders can work together – Harriet Green asks OakNorth’s Rishi Khosla February 25, 2016 Alongside the P2P lenders and crowdfunding platforms, challenger banks have continued to make their mark as leaders of the alternative finance revolution. One of those challengers is OakNorth, which launched last year. Sitting in a similar space to P2P lenders in terms of loan size, co-founder Rishi Khosla tells me that: “we really want to be [...]
Equity crowdfunding: What motivates an investor? February 25, 2016 How do retail investors really make decisions when investing through crowdfunding platforms? A new paper, released today by the London School of Economics, sheds some light. The focus is whether equity crowdfunding provides a robust alternative to financing entrepreneurship. To answer this, authors Saul Estrin and Susanna Khavul have looked at the rationality of investor behaviour, [...]
Small business representatives tell the Work and Pensions Committee of their auto-enrolment worries, including clash between adopting system and National Living Wage February 24, 2016 Smaller employers need to act now to understand what is required of them under the pensions auto-enrolment rules, small business representatives have cautioned. Speaking in front of the Work and Pensions Committee this morning, Mike Cherry, policy director at Federation of Small Businesses, pointed out that research by his organisation indicated that that many small businesses [...]
The Bank of England, blockchain and the future of the payments industry: Innovation, resilience or both? February 23, 2016 The Bank of England's principal objective is clear: to maintain monetary and financial stability. It is, therefore, almost by definition, a risk averse institution. Yet in a speech to leaders in the payments industry delivered last month, the Bank’s deputy governor for markets and banking outlined the need to modernise the UK’s real-time gross settlement system (RTGS). This [...]
Pensions tax relief cuts: Why the government is vastly over-estimating what it could save from moving to flat rate relief February 23, 2016 In his Budget speech on 16 March, the chancellor is widely expected to announce – potentially quite radical – changes to the taxation of pensions. This will not just be important for pensions professionals. Fundamental changes to the way tax relief is granted could have significant consequences both for members of pension schemes and for those who [...]
Investing in junior Isas: Why kids can be risk-takers February 23, 2016 I'm getting into stocks. Or perhaps more accurately, I’m getting into stocks via a tax-free savings and investment account designed specifically for my daughter, who’s barely a month old. While none of this will technically be my money, there’s an underlying lesson here for the broader investment environment: time. If you are a short-term trader [...]