How established firms can fight back against fintech startups and being “uberised” April 29, 2016 When a new species enters an ecosystem, it can be disastrous for the existing inhabitants. The same is true in business. Financial markets are awash with innovation – fintech rules the day. Established players, worried that they may suddenly get ‘uberised’, have been forced to sit up. Read more: Fintech is coming to take your banking [...]
How Brits are bringing home £1.3bn of bacon and stashing it in piggy banks, glass jars and “on the side” April 29, 2016 Brits are stashing more than £1bn in piggy banks, glass jars and "on the side", according to a new study. Virgin Money research suggests millions of UK adults currently use piggy banks. “On the side” stashes were the most preferred, with 16 per cent of those surveyed using this storage facility. Glass jars (12 per cent), [...]
Want to work in the tech sector? These are the UK’s highest-paying tech firms April 29, 2016 Thinking of going into finance? The tech sector just might pay better, if new research is anything to go by. It turns out that not only do tech giants such as Apple, Amazon and Google offer great benefits – free lunches, flexible holiday allowances, egg freezing – but the salaries they pay rival anything a bank can throw [...]
In defiance of mindfulness: Instead of “finding yourself”, improve your circumstances April 29, 2016 Mindfulness is so big these days that someone has even made an attempt at calculating its impact on this country’s GDP. I, however, have not seen anyone to whom mindfulness has made any substantial difference. In fact, all the confused people that I know regularly meditate and go on yoga retreats. Some even teach at [...]
Google Ventures’ new silver bullet for team work – and how you can use it in your firm April 29, 2016 How do the best teams in the world achieve so much? What’s it like being part of a lead team at Google or Uber? Google Ventures Design partner Jake Knapp has spent years working out what makes a team the most effective and productive it can be. The result is his new book Sprint, co-authored with [...]
How the UK led private equity buy-and-build activity to four-year high in 2015 April 28, 2016 European buy-and-build activity, where private equity firms acquire a company and merge it with a counterpart before selling the group on, reached its highest level since 2011 last year, according to a new report. Silverfleet Capital’s annual European Buy and Build Monitor tracks this add-on activity across the world. Over the course of the year, it tracked [...]
Finance directors living in fear of pension schemes, particularly following BHS collapse April 28, 2016 Tata Steel and BHS are not the only companies with problematic pensions, as research out today has found that many finance directors have concerns about their own firm's retirement vehicles. The study by Hymans Robertson discovered that one in seven finance directors believe their company's defined benefit (DB) pension is a major risk, while the Pensions Policy [...]
To the happy couple, on your expensive special day: a £5,897 loan April 28, 2016 Even those who don't usually cry at weddings will admit that the £151m worth of wedding loan applications received by one company between 2013 and 2015 is eye-watering. Freedom Finance also revealed today that it had received £8.6m in loan applications from happy couples looking to raise some extra cash for their special day in January and [...]
Peer-to-peer mortgage company LendInvest announces £40m warehouse funding line from Macquarie April 28, 2016 A peer-to-peer (P2P) mortgage lender has announced a new funding round worth £40m. The firm has signed a warehouse financing deal with investment bank Macquarie. LendInvest said the £40m, used to fund mortgages via its website, will allow it to grow and consolidate its position in the UK short-term mortgage market. Read more: Skype's founder just invested £17m in this [...]
International Girls in ICT day: What lego can tell us about gender equality April 28, 2016 Let’s hear it for Lego. Long criticised for introducing gender stereotypical brick sets, the Danish company unveiled three new Lego science figures last year: a palaeontologist, an astronomer and a chemist. The surprise? All three scientists were female. The plastic brick has suddenly become a symbol of gender equality. It comes at the right time: [...]
