Discount clothing retailer Primark continues to buck the trend on the High Street after reporting a 9% rise in sales in the past six months at stores open at least a year. The results come as rivals such as Marks & Spencer, Next and Sweden’s Hennes & Mauritz (H&M) report declines amid the recession. H&M [...]
Supermarket giant Tesco has announced it is opening a finance centre in Glasgow with the creation of 800 jobs. The move is part of Tesco Personal Finance’s expansion programme, which will see it compete with High Street banks. Tesco, which has a 30% share of the grocery market, already offers credit cards, savings accounts and [...]
Recession hit Britons who have abandoned eating out have boosted Domino’s Pizza’s sales, with profits at the pizza delivery group rising 25% to £13.6 million. Fast food chains appear to be one of the few industries that are thriving during the recession with the nation’s enthusiasm for takeaways showing no signs of abating. Total sales, [...]
Supermarket giant Sainsbury’s has reported that like-for-like sales were up 7.8% for the 12 week period to 13 June. The news comes just a day after fellow supermarket Tesco posted a 4.3% rise in quarterly sales and said it had made a “solid” start to its financial year. Meanwhile, Sainsbury’s, which is Britain’s third-largest supermarket, [...]
Insurance firms remain upbeat about the year ahead despite taking a battering from the credit crunch. Over half (55%) of the world’s leading insurers expect organic growth to improve over the next 12 months, whilst a similar number (53%) expect to grow through acquisitions. International expansion is the favoured option for many companies, with the [...]
Smoothie maker Innocent is to receive £30 million from Coca-Cola, in return for a 20 percent stake, which will be used to drive the business and extend into European markets. Innocent has been the recipient of heavy criticism during the negotiations, however co-founder Richard Reed has hit out at the financing deal saying that the [...]
Nokia has made a huge investment in a California-based start-up with the focus on making the mobile phone a viable alternative to the credit card. Nokia have invested in Obopay Inc, although there was no disclosure of the amount of the investment or whether Nokia’s head of corporate business development, Teppo Paavolo, will get a [...]
Tesco could be offering mortgages at the supermarket checkout a year from now. The retail giant announced its intention to expand its personal finance business back in July, when it unveiled plans to become sole owner of Tesco Personal Finance and buy out 50/50 joint venture partner, Royal Bank of Scotland, for £950 million. After [...]
The Nationwide has announced its intention to set up operations next year in the Irish Republic. The building society, which is one of the UK’s biggest mortgage lenders said it will initially offer savings accounts to customers by post, telephone and online, subject to approval from the UK’s Financial Services Authority and its Irish equivalent, [...]
Premium online property group, Simplyzigzag.com, has announced its expansion into the US market. Simplyzigzag, which was launched in June this year, is to expand through two local partnerships in California and Florida – areas which are traditionally investment destinations for Britons seeking property overseas. The group has formed a partnership with a leading independent real [...]
Barclays has confirmed it is close to raising £4 billion in a placing with some largest sovereign wealth funds in the world. The announcement has put an end to doubt surrounding the banking giant. The placing is expected to be finalised within 2 weeks and will involve issuing new shares to investors at a premium [...]
Phone fraudsters stealing bank card pins
Fraudsters using a phone scam to trick bank card holders into revealing their pin numbers stole £750,000 in the first four months of this year. This is the same amount stolen through this scam in the whole of last year. The fraudster telephones a bank customer, often someone elderly or vulnerable, telling them that their [...]
FSA rules out ban on interest-only mortgages
Speculation that the Financial Services Authority would ban interest-only mortgages as part of its Mortgage Market Review has proved to be unfounded. However, lenders will be required to monitor the performance of the investment product taken out by the customer to repay the mortgage at the end of its term. Investments are performing poorly because [...]
Bank of England may end free in-credit banking
A director of the Bank of England has warned that official intervention could be considered to end the ‘dangerous myth of free in-credit banking’. Andrew Bailey has already spoken out against free banking in relation to the mis-selling of financial products. In a speech made available to media, he reiterated his concern, saying that it [...]
Bank of England votes against more economic stimulus
The Bank of England voted against a further round of quantitative easing, at its latest Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting. Just one member, David Miles, voted for further asset purchase to encourage growth in the UK economy, while the other eight members voted to keep the Bank’s quantitative easing programme steady at £325bn. The minutes [...]
Catalogue debt growing says helpline
Calls from people concerned about their debts with mail order catalogues accounted for more than 12 per cent of all calls received by National Debtline last year, compared with just 8 per cent in 2007. More people were concerned about catalogue debt than about payday loans, mortgage or rent, according to the Money Advice Trust [...]
Homeserve faces mis-selling investigation
HomeServe, which provides emergency insurance cover and domestic repairs to households in the UK, is to be investigated by the Financial Services Authority (FSA). Issues over the possible mis-selling of household emergency policies were uncovered last October during an internal review at the Walsall-based company. Homeserve’s call centre staff were found to be selling ‘Complete [...]
OFT warns Wonga over debt collection methods
Payday loan company Wonga used aggressive and misleading methods to collect debts from customers, the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has found. Wonga sent letter and emails to certain customers suggesting they had committed fraud and threatening to report them to the police if they did not act in the way Wonga suggested. The company [...]
NS&I re-launches investment account
National Savings & Investments (NS&I) has re-launched its Investment Account at a higher interest rate than it previously offered. The account now offers 0.75 per cent before tax, compared with between 0.2 and 0.3 per cent previously, depending on the account balance. Deposits and withdrawals on the account can no longer be made at Post [...]
Rightmove reports property downsizing trend
Two in five property owners planning to sell in the next year are planning to ‘trade down’, compared with one in four who plan to ‘trade up’. A survey by property website Rightmove found that moving to a smaller home is the main reason for moving in nine out of the ten regions in the [...]
More people failing to save for retirement
The proportion of people with no pension savings has grown from 20 per cent to 22 per cent over the past year, according to Scottish Widows’ latest survey. The pension provider surveyed 5,200 adults in the UK, aged 30 or over, and earning at least £10,000 a year, for its annual review of pensions. Ian [...]
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