City of London police are training Standard Chartered bankers to catch fraudsters October 25, 2015 City of London police has started a programme to train bankers to fight fraud, starting with Standard Chartered who will be descending on the City this week. The programme was designed to standardise investigative techniques within Standard Chartered's multitude of regional offices. Kathy Hearn, director of the Economic Crime Academy, which has helped design the [...]
Investec: Lloyds Banking Group will post a £2.3bn profit this week October 25, 2015 Lloyds Banking Group is expected to post a rise in quarterly profits on Wednesday, in its first set of results since chancellor George Osborne announced that retail investors would be able to buy shares of the bailed-out bank at a discount next year. Citing “modest revenue growth, lower costs and potentially no charge at all for [...]
A lack of lorry drivers threatens Christmas 2015 online deliveries October 25, 2015 Christmas is under threat from a lack of lorry drivers. Shops could be left with empty shelves while online deliveries face delays due to a shortage of tens of thousands of lorry drivers, it has been warned. "We are short of between 45,000 and 50,000 drivers and the situation is getting worse," chief executive of the Road Haulage Association (RHA) [...]
UK GDP Q3 2015: Economists say growth could slip to 0.5pc and manufacturing and construction are to blame for slowdown October 25, 2015 Growth figures out this week are expected to show that the UK economy is slowing down due to weaker construction and manufacturing output. Economists say gross domestic product (GDP) increased by either 0.5 per cent or 0.6 per cent in the third quarter, compared to 0.7 per cent in the second quarter. The first quarter [...]
Bank of England’s Mark Carney on interest rate rise: 4pc of mortgage holders vulnerable to hike October 25, 2015 Bank of England governor Mark Carney has said Britain should be prepared for interest rates to be hiked, but it was by no means certain that the historically low rate would be raised. He warned that there were households at risk due to large amounts of debt – as many as four per cent of mortgage [...]
Barclays suffers”technical issues” as some customers are unable to access cash October 25, 2015 Barclays has suffered technical problems which have prevented customers from accessing their accounts. The bank told customers on Twitter that it was experiencing issues with some of its services on Saturday morning, but still had "high volumes of customers" calling on Sunday morning. We’re currently still seeing high volumes of customers calling us this morning, please [...]
Gender pay gap data will include bonuses October 25, 2015 Companies will be forced to reveal how much men and women get paid in the form of bonuses as part of efforts to reduce pay inequality. Businesses with more than 250 employees will have to report the gap between male and female pay under new rules expected to be introduced next year. Now, David Cameron has said [...]
TalkTalk cyber attack: IoD calls cybercrime “one of biggest threats facing businesses” October 24, 2015 The Institute of Directors (IoD) has called cybercrime one of the “biggest threats facing businesses”, and urged companies to work with the government to tackle it. Oliver Parry, a senior corporate governance adviser at the IoD, told the BBC cyber attacks “happen constantly” at UK companies. "The risks need to reviewed regularly by the board [...]
Scotland house prices: Number of properties over £1m doubles, with over half based in Edinburgh October 24, 2015 Scotland is fast becoming a land of million-pound properties, with the number of homes selling for more than £1m doubling in the first half of this year. Figures from the Bank of Scotland show that from January to June, 111 properties went for this value or more, compared to 43 during the first half of [...]
Sainsbury’s experiments with futuristic store formats, including faster checkouts, a SmartShop map of your shopping list and a focus on clothes October 23, 2015 You may never have to hear the phrase "unexpected item in the bagging area" again. Sainsbury's said today it's experimenting with futuristic new "SmartShop" technology, which will allow shoppers to scan their shopping lists at home, be shown a map of their items on their smartphone – and then pay by mobile app, meaning they don't have to queue [...]