Top City firms pledge to hike contributions to employees’ pensions pots amid concerns over looming savings crunch March 21, 2023 A coalition of top City firms today vowed to boost the contributions they make into their employees’ pensions in response to growing concerns about the potential for a looming savings crunch. Aviva, Phoenix and Herbert Smith Freehills all pledged to give pensions contributions equivalent to at least seven per cent of their workers’ salaries in [...]
Currys gives 10,000 staff fourth pay rise in 18 months with extra help for London workers March 21, 2023 Tech retailer Currys will increase wages for hourly paid staff for the fourth time in 18 months – with workers in the capital getting extra help. Pay for hourly paid store colleagues will rise to £10.50 across its stores in the UK and to £11.50 in London. The retailer revealed that the average store colleague [...]
UK borrowed record £16.7bn for February but Jeremy Hunt handed interest bill boost March 21, 2023 The UK borrowed a higher than expected £16.7bn in February, a record for that specific month due to the government spending billions on helping families with the cost of energy bills, official figures out today reveal. Office for National Statistics (ONS) numbers indicate Chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s decision to cap typical household energy bills at £2,500 [...]
Broadband firms urged to cancel ‘exorbitant’ mid-contract price hikes for vulnerable customers March 21, 2023 Broadband firms have been urged to cancel “exorbitant” mid-contract price rises for vulnerable customers less than two weeks before they are due to take effect. Millions of broadband and mobile phone customers can expect to face monthly bill increases of at least 14 per cent from April. Providers often link their annual price rises to [...]
B&Q owner Kingfisher’s profits slump nearly 40 per cent although Covid backlog may yet boost DIY chain’s bottom line March 21, 2023 B&Q owner Kingfisher reported a sales slowdown as the DIY giant felt the hit from Brits scaling back on home improvements. For the year ending 31 January 2023 Kingfisher, which also owns brands such as Screwfix, posted pre-tax profits of £611m, down 39.3 per cent from £1.7bn in the same period last year. As shoppers [...]
Credit Suisse and Silicon Valley Bank chaos are symptoms of fragile banking system March 21, 2023 City folk around in 2007 must have been getting very twitchy over the last week. Some of the market moves were reminiscent of the early stages of the financial crisis once people clocked on to just how bad banks had messed up. Credit Suisse tumbled more than 30 per cent at one point. Its peers [...]
Panic, just a little bit of panic, was enough to drive Credit Suisse off a cliff March 21, 2023 After the collapse of SVB, investors and the bank's customers were on high alert for signs of shakiness and Credit Suisse was an obvious target as fears mounted over a wider, 2008-style banking crisis, writes Comment & Features Editor Sascha O’Sullivan
OBR blames optimistic economic forecasts on ‘volatile’ environment March 20, 2023 Overly optimistic economic forecasts are down to the “very volatile” nature of the UK in recent years, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) chairman has said. The official Treasury watchdog was warned by Deutsche Bank analysts that it may have repeated its mistake of over-estimating growth figures and wiping out spending power. Speaking at a [...]
Strong performance on price of Bitcoin after stablecoins recover peg and staked Ether withdrawals near March 20, 2023 Data from CryptoCompare shows that the price of Bitcoin surged from around $22,000 at the beginning of last week to now change hands above the $28,000, with the cryptocurrency market having outperformed other assets over the last few days. Ethereum’s Ether, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, moved similarly to BTC, jumping from around $1,580 [...]
Morrisons slashes prices AGAIN as supermarket attempts to woo Aldi and Lidl shoppers back to its aisles March 20, 2023 Morrisons is slashing prices for the third time in three months as it attempts to drag shoppers back from value retailers including Aldi and Lidl. The supermarket said it was cutting the prices of 460 items such as beef mince, cleaning products and fruit, in a move that followed on from a round of price [...]