AI drives surge in fraud as criminals turn to more sophisticated scams October 24, 2025 Fraud losses hit £629m in H1 2025, driven by new investment scams and record card fraud, as AI enables criminals to commit more sophisticated scams. For the first six months of 2025, there were over 2m confirmed fraud cases, a 17 per cent increase, according to trade body UK Finance, as criminals stole £629.3m, a [...]
Petroineos: Sir Jim Ratcliffe-backed energy giant loses $250m October 24, 2025 Petroineos, the energy trading company backed by Sir Jim Ratcliffe, lost $250m (£187.5m) in 2024 as it slumped into the red for the first time since 2020, it has been revealed. The Jersey-based business has reported the pre-tax loss after posting a profit of $30m in 2023. The results for the previous financial year were [...]
Retail sales hit highest since 2022 in surprise boost for economy October 24, 2025 Retail sales jumped to their highest level since 2022 in September, boosted by sunny weather that drove a surge in demand for clothing. Fresh figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed retail sales were 0.9 per cent higher than the previous three months. Sales volumes climbed 0.5 per cent in September, a significant boost from [...]
Welsh rugby should keep Scarlets but scrap Cardiff, Ospreys and Dragons October 24, 2025 With a decision expected at the end of the month, I back radical change to Welsh rugby’s regional structure. I wasn’t entirely shocked to read this week that there were over 80,000 tickets remaining for Wales’s autumn internationals, even though they’re taking on three of the southern hemisphere’s Big Four, plus Japan. What did flabbergast [...]
Natwest shares jump after cost-cutting boosts profit October 24, 2025 Natwest stock surged in early trading this morning after the lender posted a major bump in third-quarter profit following its cost-cutting regime. The FTSE 100 giant’s operating profit before tax surged over 30 per cent in the third quarter to £2.2bn, up from £1.7bn last year. Shares were up over five per cent as markets [...]
FTSE 100 Live: Natwest ups guidance, Retail sales rise October 24, 2025 Good morning from the City AM liveblog team. As we get closer and closer to the Budget, businesses are becoming more and more vocal on their concerns over what could be in store. Yesterday it was the turn of London estate agent Foxton’s, which warned of softened demand as a result of Budget uncertainty. “Macroeconomic [...]
Scrap stamp duty on shares or risk FTSE 100 exodus, Peel Hunt warns October 24, 2025 The government must scrap stamp duty taxed on share trades or risk a growing number of firms quitting London for the New York Stock Exchange, investment bank Peel Hunt has warned. As much as £200m is already set to be lost from government tax receipts by the decision of Astrazeneca, the FTSE 100’s largest constituent, [...]
Consumer confidence remains downbeat amid Budget wariness October 24, 2025 A small lift in consumer confidence over October has failed to take a leading index into positive territory amid fears that the upcoming Budget could damage personal finances. Labour has made boosting living standards a central mission in government while Chancellor Rachel Reeves has recently talked up plans to lower the cost of living for [...]
Another US lender tumbles as credit jitters accelerate October 24, 2025 Another mid-sized lender filed for bankruptcy in the US, highlighting the growing strain in American credit markets which Andrew Bailey has likened to the subprime crisis that foreshadowed the Great Financial Crisis (GFC). Primalend, a Texan provider of subprime financing to car dealerships, said in a filing on Wednesday that it had collapsed after months [...]
Can Britain’s AI growth lab speed up innovation without risking safety? October 24, 2025 The UK government’s recent unveiling of an AI ‘growth lab’ – a sandbox designed to let companies trial AI under relaxed regulatory conditions – has been hailed as a bold step to accelerate innovation. At the Times Tech Summit on Tuesday, tech secretary Liz Kendall dubbed it as a chance to remove the “needless red [...]