Financial news

• The 10 questions Dominic Chappell must answer over the BHS collapse

  04-06-2016 17:00
  
  The investor who brought the retail chain from Sir Philip Green faces MPs this week about its failure. These are the most pressing issues that require answersDominic Chappell, one-time racing driver and the owner of BHS before it collapsed into administration, will be questioned by MPs this week about his role in the demise of the 88-year-old department store chain. Chappell faces a bruising session with MPs, likely to focus on how he came to own BHS and the money his consortium, Retail Acquisit
  
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• Sweden leads the race to become cashless society

  04-06-2016 17:00
  
  Swedes are blazing a trail in Europe, with banks, buses, street vendors and even churches expecting plastic or virtual paymentIn 1661, Stockholms Banco, the precursor to the Swedish central bank, issued Europe’s first banknotes, on thick watermarked paper bearing the bank’s seal and eight handwritten signatures.Last year – as Britain did last week – Sweden launched a new series of notes, cheery affairs featuring 20th-century Swedish cultural giants such as Astrid Lindgren
  
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• A last hurrah for banknotes as UK switches to mobile and card payment

  04-06-2016 17:00
  
  With the launch of the new plastic fiver, Patrick Collinson looks at changing payment methods and asks if Britain is ready to become a cashless societyWinston Churchill gazes out from one side of the new £5 plastic note, the Queen from the other. But the chances of Prince William appearing on a banknote are looking slim. More than 300 years after the first Bank of England banknotes appeared, the new plastic ones could perhaps be the last.Stop a young adult on a British high street and you
  
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• Ben Stein: 'I don't think Trump knows a goddamn thing about economics'

  04-06-2016 12:00
  
  The Republican economist talks about the 2016 election and why he’ll still vote for Donald Trump despite this ‘preposterous’ ideas about the economyBen Stein, writer, economist, actor and Republican, has seen a lot of elections but none like this. “It has been an extremely strange year,” says the 71-year-old who got his start as a speechwriter for Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford.Stein has never voted for a Democrat, but he is appalled by Trump’s anti-free trade
  
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• Battle brewing: female beermakers take aim at industry sexism

  04-06-2016 10:00
  
  Number of female ale drinkers and brewsters is rising but beers still being sold with names like Top Totty and LegspreaderA Carlsberg advert, entitled The Crate Escape, offers a flavour of how the beer industry traditionally views women. Related: Sexist beer ads: why it's time for a cold, hard rethinkContinue reading...
  
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• Ben Fogle: send bosses into the wild with a tent

  04-06-2016 08:30
  
  The adventurer is convinced that managers can transform their businesses by spending time camping out in the wildernessWhen it comes to the great outdoors, Ben Fogle is easily excited. After asking him a question about the benefits of working-age people getting out into the wilderness, he quickly launches into a passionate response.
  “It gave me more pleasure than I can even explain to you,” he says about a recent meeting with three factory workers from Manchester, as he describes the
  
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• Wardrobes don’t fit and Oak Furniture Land wants £350 to take them back

  04-06-2016 08:01
  
  Two salespeople assured me that the cost of returning them would be only £39In April I went into the Croydon branch of Oak Furniture Land. I chose a set of wardrobes but I was worried that they might not go up my stairs. I was approached by the assistant manager. I explained the dilemma and after much debate she told me that if they wouldn’t fit, all I needed to do was pay the delivery charge of £39 to return it. With that reassurance I bought three double wardrobes, two b
  
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• Student loans ‘really were’ mis-sold

  04-06-2016 08:01
  
  Originally I supported the £9,000 tuition fee regime. But now, after my own daughter has gone through the system, I realise that the interest rates charged are scandalousI have three children, all of whom went through university under different student loan regimes; the last one started university in 2012, just as the fees went up to £9,000. I was a supporter of the student loan system, as I figured it was not like a real debt, being written off after 30 years and only payable on a s
  
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• Government under pressure over student loan change

  04-06-2016 08:01
  
  Petition against decision to freeze repayment threshold reaches 120,000 signaturesThe government is coming under intense pressure to reverse controversial changes to student loans, after one of the scheme’s leading proponents, Martin Lewis, branded them a “disgrace”, and a petition opposing them started by a Durham student hit the crucial 100,000 signatures needed to trigger a possible debate in parliament.Last week, there was a huge outcry after it emerged that students are se
  
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• Why fear inheritance tax? Your cash will all be gone

  04-06-2016 08:00
  
  Research by Prudential shows fewer than 30% of people expect to be able to leave anything to their heirsTwo of the most enduring myths in personal finance are that (a) people work their guts out to pay for a home that jumps in value to hundreds of thousands of pounds and (b) that the nasty taxman will, when they die, snatch the money they wanted to leave to the kids.A report from Prudential this week explodes that second myth comprehensively. The Pru’s research suggests that fewer than thr
  
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• We want to take our children camping, but where do we start?

  04-06-2016 08:00
  
  We’ve never been so don’t know what gear we need or where to go
  Every week a Guardian Money reader submits a question, and it’s up to you to help him or her out – a selection of the best answers will appear in next Saturday’s paper.This week’s question: Continue reading...
  
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• Frozen pension: the RAF veteran facing a chilling choice in Canada

  04-06-2016 08:00
  
  At 90, Joe Lewis could return to the UK for his full state pension – without his sick wife who’s in care. Or he could sell his home to try and make ends meetJoe Lewis faces an agonising decision. The 90-year-old second world war RAF veteran, who moved to Canada when he retired, is being forced to choose between selling his house to make ends meet, or returning to the UK and leaving his seriously ill wife behind.Lewis moved across the Atlantic because his late first wife was Canadian
  
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• All you need to know about the new £5 note

  04-06-2016 08:00
  
  The plastic fivers don’t burn or tear easily, but you can fold them and withdraw them as usual from ATMs. Just don’t iron them by mistakeThe Bank of England has cooked them in ovens, drowned them in red wine, stuck them in the microwave and run them through a 90C washing machine cycle with Persil washing power. It reckons the new £5 plastic notes – which go into circulation on 13 September – will be warmly welcomed by the British public. It also believes there are a
  
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• Travellers fall victim to fake Airbnb site

  04-06-2016 07:59
  
  A new scam is fooling even regular users, with one losing almost £800When Anne Bradbury, an experienced Airbnb user, found what looked like the perfect flat to rent for a weekend away in Amsterdam last month she emailed her friends, who quickly agreed it looked great.After checking the reviews, and making sure the reviewers were legitimate – as she had done several times before – and then making several further checks that the listing was genuine, she went ahead and made the&nb
  
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• Riverside townhouses – in pictures

  04-06-2016 01:01
  
  Take your pick from a glamorous three-storey home in west London and a modern take on Bath’s classical terraces Continue reading...
  
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