Offices share half-a-billion business rates write-off December 22, 2020 The Valuation Office Agency has agreed to write off almost £500m-worth of offices’ business rates after weeks of negotiations. Business rates discounts were announced for firms directly affected by the Covid-19 pandemic by Chancellor Rishi Sunak, including pubs and restaurants. Read more: UK borrowing in November the third-highest on record Offices that lay empty however [...]
UK Q3 growth revised upwards to 16 per cent but recovery stalls in October December 22, 2020 The UK grew only 0.4 per cent in October as the reintroduction of restrictions across the country took their toll on the economic recovery. In the same release, the Office for National Statistics revised their estimate of GDP growth in Q3, however, to 16 per cent. Read more: UK borrowing hits third highest monthly level [...]
UK monthly borrowing hits third-highest figure on record December 22, 2020 The UK Government borrowed £31.6bn in November, the third-highest figure on record. A combination of the furlough scheme, ongoing business loan programmes, and spending on Covid-related operations such as Test and Trace and the vaccine rollout has seen borrowing spike. The Office for National Statistics began monitoring borrowing figures in 1993. Read more: US passes [...]
Andrew Bailey faces another tough year at Bank of England in 2021 December 22, 2020 Mark Carney must be thanking the gods he stepped down as Bank of England governor in early March. Since then, his successor Andrew Bailey has had to steer the historic institution through the worst economic downturn in 300 years, complete with a bout of market panic in the spring. Under Bailey’s leadership the Bank slashed [...]
Charles Schwab UK fined £9m for failing to protect client assets December 21, 2020 The UK’s financial watchdog has fined investment firm Charles Schwab £9m for failing to adequately protect client assets and making a false statement to the regulator. Schwab’s breaches occurred between August 2017 and April 2019 when it moved client money from the UK arm to a US business. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) today said [...]
FCA fines fall by half in 2020 as Covid takes hit on enforcement December 21, 2020 The Financial Conduct Authority handed out £183.6m worth of fines this year, more than half the total bill in 2019. The number of fines has fallen too, from 21 to just ten. Lawyers believe the slowdown is due to the pandemic disrupting enforcement activities, not least the FCA’s ability to conduct witness and suspect interviews. [...]
Natwest buys Metro Bank’s £3bn mortgage portfolio December 18, 2020 Natwest is set to buy Metro Bank’s £3bn mortgage portfolio in a deal which will see 13,000 customers transferred over to the lender. The deal comes after the high street bank returned to profit after taking a £.21bn hit from the pandemic in the first half of the year. “Growing our mortgage book is an [...]
Elon’s twitter, record borrowing and Zoom stocks: City PM’s Business Quiz of the Year (Part 1) December 18, 2020 It’s been a… strange year. But there have been some lighter, albeit somewhat baffling, moments in the business world. See if you can remember the highs and lows of 2020, from Barclays behaving badly to the aftermath of Carlos Ghosn’s daring escape – and look out for part 2 before the end of the year.
Lloyds axes staff bonuses despite return to profitability December 18, 2020 Lloyds Bank is set to scrap bonuses for all of its employees after it saw profits plunge due to the pandemic. The bank returned to profit in the third quarter reporting a pre-tax profit of £1bn, well ahead of the average £588m forecasted by analysts. But its pre-tax profit for the first nine months of [...]
US trade chief believes next WTO director-general should have ‘real experience’ December 18, 2020 The US trade chief Robert Lighthizer has implied that the process to find the next World Health Organisation (WTO) director-general should be re-opened. In Lighthizer’s first ever international interview, he told the BBC on Wednesday that the next WTO director-general should be ”someone with real experience in Trade.” Lighthizer goes on to say that the [...]
