Brexit and the pound: How hard will battered sterling hit our economy? June 21, 2016 The pound has strengthened as the latest polls show public feeling has swung towards a remain vote this Thursday. Sterling rose 2.3 per cent to $1.4693, the biggest one day gain in over seven years. The last time it rose this sharply was 12 September 2008, days before Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy. “Three polls over [...]
Prudentials pulls back from the UK open annuity market June 20, 2016 Prudential will no longer offer annuities on the open market and only make them available to existing customers, stoking concerns it will hit individuals' ability to shop around for the best deal. The insurer said it'd stopped accepting applications for conventional annuities from non-existing customers though financial advisors on 17 June. It cited reduced demand [...]
Vast majority of financial services chiefs expect shareholder rebellions over executive pay to continue, according to report released by Per Ardua June 20, 2016 Finance bosses are braced for more shareholder activism over executive pay, following a string of rebellions so far this year. More than eight in 10 respondents (82 per cent) to a Per Ardua Associates study said they were expecting to see more remuneration-focused activism from shareholders. A quarter (25 per cent) also said their companies were [...]
UK small businesses get £100m loans boost from European Investment Bank June 20, 2016 The European Investment Bank (EIB) has agreed to make a £100m investment in loans to small UK businesses through Funding Circle. The investment, along with £25m from the Funding Circle SME Income Fund, will enable more than £200m of new loans over seven years, the crowdfunding platform said. To date, Funding Circle said it has [...]
TalkTalk chief executive Dido Harding has donated her bonus to charity after it was hacked June 20, 2016 Dido Harding, the chief executive of telecoms giant TalkTalk, has donated this year's bonus to charity, the company said today. In an annual report published this morning, it said Harding had decided to give her £220,000 bonus away to charitable causes. Although to be fair, it looked like she was going to do ok without it – [...]
What the doctor ordered: London Doctors Clinic’s Seth Rankin talks Papua New Guinea, crowdfunding and bringing choice to patients June 20, 2016 If you’ve ever needed to pop to the doctors that same day, and you didn’t have the time or inclination to go to a walk-in centre, you may well have found yourself going to a London Doctors Clinic. If you’re based in central London, there’s one within ten minutes of where you work. At £55 for 15 [...]
Tech beats FTSE for female bosses (but there’s still work to do) June 20, 2016 Technology businesses are beating the FTSE when it comes to the number of female bosses, as the startup sector sets an example to the rest of the business world for gender equality. A fifth of tech firms in the UK are run by women, compared to just five per cent of FTSE 100 companies and only four per [...]
As the Bank of England launches an accelerator, will fintech transform central banking as much as other financial services? June 20, 2016 Nick Bouch, financial services data leader at PwC, says Yes. The rapidly changing tech landscape raises a challenge to central banks to keep pace with the sophistication of the economic activity they govern. With the rise of blockchain, cloud, mobile and robotics, economic activity is shifting at an ever increasing pace from physical to digital. [...]
If you’ve been appointed whistleblowing champion at work, there’s no need to panic June 20, 2016 The strength of public and political concern regarding misconduct scandals in banking and financial services means the regulators are determined to ensure that there’s a stronger whistleblowing culture within the sector. One requirement on firms is the appointment of a senior manager as “whistleblowing champion”. Read more: Banks will need to appoint a whistleblowing champion The [...]
PwC promotes record 61 equity partners, boosting female partnerships to 174 June 20, 2016 PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) has broken its own record by promoting 61 employees to equity partner status. This is the third year in a row that the accountancy firm has increased its investment in staff. Almost one third (28 per cent) of the new partners are female, bringing the firm’s total number of female partners to 174 – more [...]
