Top City analyst cloned in AI deepfake scam March 21, 2025 Michael Hewson – one of the City’s most respected market analysts – was cloned as part of an AI-powered social media scam. A fake video using AI to pose as the host of the Good Money Guide Podcast circulated on Facebook and Instagram this week, attempting to lure users into joining a Whatsapp group. The [...]
Natwest partners with OpenAI as FTSE giant scales up tech March 20, 2025 Natwest announced on Thursday it has entered a partnership with OpenAI to focus on “bank-wide simplification”. The FTSE 100 lender said it would leverage AI to meet customers’ needs faster and more effectively, whilst increasing productivity and efficiency across operations. The firm said it would deploy “some of the latest and most powerful developments in [...]
IT outages: Are UK banks failing to modernise? March 20, 2025 Imagine it’s payday, and you’re trying to pay your bills or make a critical purchase, only to discover that your bank’s system has gone down. For millions of customers at Britain’s major banks, this nightmare is all too familiar. Over the past two years, nine of the UK’s banks were offline for more than 800 [...]
Fintech boss outlines industry’s Spring Statement needs March 20, 2025 With the Chancellor’s Spring Statement under a week away, a fintech boss has laid out how the government must support the industry. Laurent Descout, co-founder and chief executive of payments platform NEO, said Rachel Reeves must prioritise support for the fintech sector through two key areas: university funding and helping small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). [...]
This future of AI is examined in this exciting new movie March 20, 2025 Documentary The Thinking Game charts the rise of AI through the story of DeepMind, a leading AI lab founded by Demis Hassabis, an earnest but likeable tech genius who has devoted his life to “solving” the mystery of artificial general intelligence (AGI). Recruiting the best minds in the field, they seek to create systems that [...]
Littler, Gen Z and Netflix: Why investment banks have fallen for darts March 20, 2025 Forget AI, clean energy and healthcare, there is a new hot tip for investors looking for big returns: the historically downmarket, beer-soaked world of darts. The sport is riding the crest of a wave generated by better promotion, wider consumption and, more recently, the rise and rise of teenage phenomenon Luke Littler. Ticket demand is [...]
Jaguar Land Rover hires 150 EV roles ahead of electric Range Rover launch March 20, 2025 Jaguar Land Rover will recruit 150 specialist EV technicians in the West Midlands ahead of the launch of its all-electric Range Rover in 2025. The luxury carmaker said the new roles would be “central” to its plans to offer pure electric versions of all of its brands by 2030. It is also aiming to become [...]
Softcat beats analyst expectations as profit jumps March 19, 2025 UK tech infrastructure firm Softcat beat analyst expectations last year as profit growth accelerated into the double digits over the last six months of the year. Gross profit at the firm increased by 12.1 per cent to £220.2m, above analyst expectations of £218.3m, Softcat revealed in its half-year report. Meanwhile, operating profit climbed 10.4 per [...]
UK fintechs sound alarm on spike in organised crime March 19, 2025 Seven in ten UK fintechs said fraud volumes in their business shot up over the last year, according to new research. Alloy’s State of UK Fraud Report stated 79 per cent of UK fintech firms lost at least £500,000 to fraud in the 12 months to October 2024. Two in five recorded losses between £1m [...]
The bond markets must not be allowed block defence spending March 19, 2025 The Germans are funding increased defence spending through debt so why can’t we? The Chancellor needs to start telling a better story about the future direction of our economy, says Paul Ormerod President Trump wants European countries to spend five per cent of GDP on defence. Kier Starmer plans to increase UK spending from 2.3 [...]