Greggs off to better start after swinging to first ever loss in 2020 March 16, 2021 Greggs said that it had made a stronger-than-expected start to 2021 after seeing sales slip back last year as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. The impact of the pandemic meant the baked goods peddler swung to a £13m loss, a huge flip from the £108m profit it made the prior year. That beat the [...]
Ferguson sees profit rise as US home improvement demand soars March 16, 2021 Plumbing group Ferguson raised its dividend and announced a share buyback on Tuesday after posting a higher half-year profit. The firm was buoyed by cost control measures and a strong home improvement demand in its biggest market, the US. The London-listed company, which has a secondary US listing, said underlying trading profit rose to $837m [...]
E-commerce firm Bango sees profit soar in online lockdown boom March 16, 2021 Data-driven commerce company Bango saw revenue and profit soar last year as the group celebrated a boom in online payments during the pandemic. Revenue at the company rocketed 70 per cent to £12.2m last year as it inked new deals with Google and Amazon — up from £7.2m the year before. Bango also recovered from a [...]
FCA starts criminal proceedings against NatWest for money laundering March 16, 2021 The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has today announced that it has lodged criminal proceedings against NatWest for money laundering offences. The regulator said the bank had failed to show risk sensitive due diligence and monitoring of its relationships with customers for the purposes of preventing money laundering. The case arose from the handling of funds [...]
BDO wins biggest international audit client replacing Big Four firm KPMG March 15, 2021 BDO in the UK, German and the US has won its largest ever international audit client, replacing KPMG as auditor of software giant SAP. The challenger firm will take over from KPMG as SAP’s auditor for the 2023 financial year. According to SAP, BDO has a “modern and innovative audit concept”. The decision to take [...]
Andrew Bailey under pressure over link to RBS scandal March 15, 2021 Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey is under fire after it emerged that he played a role in designing a scheme that left thousands of small businesses in ruin after the financial crisis. Bailey was one of those who helped the Treasury design its Asset Protection Agency, which pressured lender RBS (now Natwest) to withdraw [...]
How millennial savings app Plum could lure a new generation of DIY investors March 12, 2021 The reason Victor Trokoudes started Plum may be a familiar story to some millennials. His dad started nagging him about putting money away after he realised he hadn’t been doing much about his savings despite working as a trader in the City. He started building Plum in 2016 with co-founder Alex Michael before its launch [...]
Natwest winds down online lending platform Esme March 12, 2021 Natwest’s foray into the fintech world has come to an abrupt end with the closure of its standalone SME lending platform Esme Loans. Esme launched in 2017 offering loans between £5,000 and £150,000 for small business customers. The terms were usually between between one and five years and backed by personal guarantees. Now the platform [...]
Diversity blow: UK banks lost 10,000 women in 2020 March 12, 2021 The number of women at the UK’s five biggest lenders shrank by three per cent during 2020, according to new Bloomberg data. Men saw a decline of around 2.1 per cent as banks pushed ahead with long-planned cuts and navigated the Covid-19 crisis. At NatWest, roles filled by women fell by nine per cent compared [...]
Cazoo, Dettol and Tik Tok: How the pandemic has changed the sport sponsorship landscape March 3, 2021 The pandemic may have halted the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, but in the world of sport sponsorship it has sparked some dramatic moves. New entrants are making major investments while more established sponsors have moved aside to make way. A combination of enforced changes of habit and the uneven nature of Covid-19’s [...]