British Gas is not overcharging customers – this is why February 13, 2017 | City Talk As we wrote in our article Forget the acronyms, we value investors care about the treatment of stakeholders. Not just investors but staff, customers, suppliers and regulators. Given the political, regulatory and media pressure on the so called “Big Six” energy companies, the situation at Centrica is worthy of closer examination. Are customers paying too [...]
Job openings in financial services just jumped February 13, 2017 If you're thinking about changing jobs, now may be the time to pounce, after new figures found the number of openings in the financial services sector almost doubled in January. Morgan McKinley's London Employment Monitor found the number of openings in the sector rose to 9,015 in January, up 81 per cent from the 4,980 [...]
Now Santander lets you make payments using just your voice February 13, 2017 More proof that voice control is the future… Santander is now letting customers make payments just by asking their phone, along with several other new functions that work in a similar way to Apple's Siri or Amazon's Alexa Users of the bank's SmartBank app can use their voice to check their account balance, report a lost [...]
Can advertising be a force for good? Diageo’s Syl Saller certainly thinks so February 13, 2017 If the early bird catches the worm, then the attendees of this year’s Advertising Association LEAD summit must have been full by the time it began. Early starts are anathema to most in the media, myself included, but the full force of AdLand was on parade, bright-eyed – despite the culture secretary’s dry, cliched, keynote [...]
New hub to help grow UK’s £6 billion fintech sector February 13, 2017 | City Talk A new specialist fintech hub, backed by the UK and Scottish governments, will open its doors to entrepreneurs in May 2017. The hub will be the first of its kind in Scotland and will be based in Entrepreneurial Spark at Royal Bank of Scotland’s base in Edinburgh. It will launch one year on from the [...]
DriveTribe co-founders Richard Hammond and Ernesto Schmitt talk dating, driverless cars and excluding Jeremy Clarkson from music ventures February 13, 2017 How would you transition from celebrity to business magnate? If you’ve already done well in life, one option is to wind down. This is not, however, the option Richard Hammond and sidekicks James May and Jeremy Clarkson are going for. In case they didn’t have enough to do launching Amazon’s The Grand Tour, they’ve also [...]
City Moves for 13 February 2017 – who’s switching jobs? February 13, 2017 Today's City Moves cover legal eagles, hotels and a precious metal explorer. Take a look at these movers and shakers: Ashfords LLP National legal and professional services provider Ashfords LLP has appointed Jim Morris as a partner and head of the firm’s expert aviation team. Having previously worked for six years as the aviation partner [...]
Debretts ask the expert: How to make my staff better at facing clients February 13, 2017 I work for an investment management firm and run a back office team which works with clients on compliance issues. I need my team to improve their client-facing skills in order to help us build better relationships and ultimately win more business. I’ve persuaded the company to allocate a small amount of money for training, [...]
Instagram-obsessed millennials are wasting food February 10, 2017 Millennials are prioritising making food visually appealing and are wasting ingredients as a result, according to a Sainsbury’s report. Kids these days, eh? The study found older generations are more likely to plan meals in advance and make full use of the food available, while millennials are creating more interesting meals. Sainsbury’s surveyed 5,050 consumers on [...]
Psychology in marketing: It’s time to get emotional February 10, 2017 To succeed at marketing you need to understand people. And to understand people, you need to know what makes them tick. In an age when ad blocking is on the rise and trust at a premium, understanding psychology has never been more important in marketing. Whenever I talk about the art of persuasion in [...]
