Motor finance: Lloyds, Barclays shares jump as FCA softens blow October 8, 2025 Shares in motor finance lenders rallied on Wednesday morning after the Financial Conduct Authority dropped a major update on its industry-wide redress scheme. Lloyds Banking Group – which owns the UK’s largest motor finance provider, Black Horse – was up over two per cent to 85.06p. Meanwhile, Close Brothers, which just last week set aside [...]
Hargreaves Lansdown co-founder to step down from board October 8, 2025 The billionaire co-founder of Hargreaves Lansdown is stepping down as board director of the personal investment business months after its £5.4bn acquisition by private equity firms, marking an end to his involvement in the business. Peter Hargreaves, who created the UK’s largest DIY investment site with co-founder Stephen Lansdown in 1981, will be handing his [...]
Football clubs concerned as EFL set to axe its rogue owners test October 8, 2025 The EFL is planning to hand over sole responsibility for assessing the suitability of potential owners to the Independent Football Regulator (IFR), raising concerns among some clubs over whether the new government-backed body has the resources and expertise to make such judgements effectively. The Premier League, in contrast, will continue to operate its own Owners’ [...]
FTSE 100 Live: Bank shares surge; Gold surpasses $4,000 October 8, 2025 Good morning from the City AM live blog team. Arguably no sector has had as sensitive share movement in recent months as the banking industry. In August, following the motor finance ruling, City banks added £7bn in market value after a major boost from the Supreme Court. But less than a month later after the [...]
Reeves urged to increase alcohol taxes to tackle workplace drinking October 8, 2025 Pubs and restaurants up and down the country could be forced to serve up higher booze prices as Rachel Reeves has been urged to add fresh alcohol levies to her menu of tax rises at next month’s Budget. The Institute for Public Policy Research, a left-leaning think tank with close ties to the government, has [...]
The Debate: Would a pact with Reform save the Conservative Party? October 8, 2025 New polling shows almost half the Tory party supports a merger with Reform, so is it time to unite the right?
Reeves must reject this finger-wagging, fun-sapping, tax-loving nonsense October 8, 2025 The Chancellor may have felt in need of a stiff drink after absorbing the latest productivity figures handed to her by the Office for Budget Responsibility, and who could blame her? The OBR is widely expected to have significantly downgraded its productivity forecasts while at the same time conceding that it’s been overestimating productivity growth [...]
Average Brit would need lifetime of earnings to become wealthy October 8, 2025 The average British worker would need to save more than a lifetime’s worth of earnings to become wealthy, fresh analysis has revealed. The ever-widening wealth gap means it would take £1.3m – around 52 years’ worth of average earnings – to jump from the middle to the top of wealth distribution. This is over a [...]
London hailed as global capital for women’s sport as 1.4m visit October 8, 2025 London has been hailed as a global epicentre for women’s sport after the Red Roses, Queen’s Club, the Lionesses and athletics all contributed to 1.4m fans attending events in the capital. Nearly 82,000 fans packed in to Allianz Stadium in Twickenham last month to watch England beat Canada to win a first Women’s Rugby World [...]
Badenoch preferred as Prime Minister over Starmer October 8, 2025 Kemi Badenoch has been handed a boost ahead of her make-or-break Tory conference speech today as fresh polling has shown the Tory leader is preferred as Prime Minister over Keir Starmer. The latest City AM/Freshwater Strategy survey has shown that Badenoch leads Starmer by two percentage points as the country’s preferred Prime Minister, a marginal [...]