Financial news

• Boots faces boycott over refusal to lower cost of morning-after pill

  20-07-2017 21:02 via theguardian.com
  Tesco and Superdrug halve price of emergency contraceptive after charity campaign, but Boots retains higher priceThere have been calls for a boycott of Boots after the chemist refused to lower the cost of the morning-after pill for fear it would encourage over-use. Rivals Tesco and Superdrug halved the price of the emergency contraceptive following a campaign from the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), a leading provider of abortion care. Continue reading...
  
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• The promise of a new era at Sports Direct must also mean new personnel

  20-07-2017 20:48 via theguardian.com
  Mike Ashley has finally hired a CFO and has forecast other investor-pleasing changes. But nothing would please investors more than a new chairSkip over a few details in Sports Direct’s full-year results statement and you can almost think the founder and chief executive, Mike Ashley, wants to turn the business into a conventional public company a decade after its arrival on the stock exchange.Look, he’s finally hired a permanent finance director, one Jon Kempster, after three years of
  
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• Pound falls against euro after ECB meeting; Fathom warns of UK recession - as it happened

  20-07-2017 20:13 via theguardian.com
  All the day’s economic and financial news, including rolling coverage of the European Central Bank’s monetary policy meetingLatest: Fathom sees rising risk of UK recessionPound hits eight-month low vs euroSummary: What Draghi did, and didn’t, sayDraghi says QE discussions due in the autumnEarlier:UK retail sales up by 0.6% in JuneBut consumer spending likely to remain subdued 7.13pm BSTThat’s all for today. Thanks for reading and commenting, GW 7.08pm BSTThis is also inte
  
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• Peak Bake Off? UK's home baking boom soggy bottom

  20-07-2017 19:31 via theguardian.com
  Analysts say shoppers buying fewer and cheaper baking ingredients less often in sign inflation dampening Great British Bake Off effectThere are signs Britain’s home baking boom may be running out of steam, just as Channel 4 prepares to relaunch one of its main catalysts, The Great British Bake Off.The amount of baking ingredients, including flour, dried fruits and cake coverings, sold by supermarkets fell 3.8% in the year to the end of March, according to analysts at Kantar Worldpanel. Con
  
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• MPs threatened with arrest after protest at Viagogo office in London

  20-07-2017 18:48 via theguardian.com
  Nigel Adams and Sharon Hodgson warned police would be called in they didn’t leave after joining protest at office of ticket resale siteTwo MPs have been threatened with arrest after attempting to “doorstep” the bosses of Viagogo at the controversial ticket resale company’s “secret” offices in central London.Conservative MP Nigel Adams and Labour’s Sharon Hodgson said they felt they had no choice but to turn up at Viagogo’s offices on Fenchurch Stre
  
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• Could you spot a fake Airbnb listing, plus what's so fishy about cans of tuna?

  20-07-2017 16:40 via theguardian.com
  Also, it’s the end of charges for credit card payments and UK house prices rise despite political turmoilSign up to receive Money Talks each weekHello and welcome to this week’s Money Talks – a roundup of the week’s biggest stories and some things you may have missed. Continue reading...
  
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• The cost of living crisis is down to Brexit. The chickens are coming home to roost | David Blanchflower

  20-07-2017 16:20 via theguardian.com
  Markets have no idea where the economy is headed and interest rate rises could easily push the UK back into recession• David Blanchflower is an economistFirst, a little primer on inflation. The UK inflation rate for June 2017 as measured by the consumer prices index (CPI) was 2.6%, the Office for National Statistics announced this week. That is to say that the cost of living, measured by prices of a representative “basket of goods” from computer games to children’s clothin
  
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• Culture secretary keeps Rupert Murdoch waiting over Sky deal

  20-07-2017 15:15 via theguardian.com
  Karen Bradley says she is still minded to refer takeover to competition regulator, but needs more time to consider submissionsRupert Murdoch’s bid to take over Sky has been dealt a blow after the culture secretary said she needed more time to deliberate before calling in the competition regulator after being inundated with tens of thousands of submissions opposing the £11.7bn deal.Karen Bradley said she had hoped to be able to make a final decision on whether to ask the Competition a
  
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• UK investors still distrust banks a decade after financial crisis - Investment Week

  20-07-2017 14:20
  Investment Week
  UK investors still distrust banks a decade after financial crisis
  Investment Week
  Ten years after former Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke warned against sub-prime lending failures, which ultimately kicked off the global financial crisis, more than half of UK investors still do not trust the financial services industry ...
  
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• Sierra Leone: teenage girls are dying from unsafe abortions and risky pregnancies

  20-07-2017 13:23 via theguardian.com
  Abortion is illegal in Sierra Leone, with one of the highest rates of teen pregnancy in the world. Attitudes need to change to save the lives of young girls
  I recently saw a girl in clinic with terrible complications following a caesarean section. The operation had been botched and she had an infection around her uterus. She was in terrible pain and critically unwell. This was in the children’s clinic; the girl was 14 years old.This scenario is all too common. She is just one of the thousa
  
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• French-Dutch culture clash revealed in leaked Air France-KLM report

  20-07-2017 13:07 via theguardian.com
  French staff say KLM colleagues think only of money, while Dutch see Air France workers as aloof, report saysA clash of national cultures and an inability to understand each other’s languages threatens to make the merged Air France-KLM group of airlines unmanageable, according to a leaked internal company report.French staff in the Franco-Dutch company complain their colleagues from the Netherlands are money-grubbing, while the Dutch regard the Air France staff as aloof, according to the r
  
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• Why my ‘gig economy’ review favours gradual change over quick fixes | Mathew Taylor

  20-07-2017 11:09 via theguardian.com
  My report has been misunderstood by some. It advocates opening up new possibilities that could offer significant benefits for workers and unions• Matthew Taylor led the Review of Employment Practices in the Modern EconomyIn the city of Gotha, 142 years ago, the German Social Democratic party inspired by Eduard Bernstein infuriated Karl Marx by deciding that socialism could be achieved through reform rather than revolution. In 2017, a week after the prime minister launched my independent rev
  
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• How far would you go to give your children a better chance in life?

  20-07-2017 10:05 via theguardian.com
  Are you an ‘opportunity hoarder’? Do you have any qualms about using money or influence to help your kids? We’d like to hear how you balance giving your children a leg-up with helping to create a fairer societyWriting in the Observer recently, the writer and academic Richard Reeves challenged well-off parents in the US to acknowledge their role in hoarding opportunity for their own children at the expense of those from poorer families.Reeves, who was born in England and was for
  
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• British Gas to pay customers £1.1m over missed appointments

  20-07-2017 09:26 via theguardian.com
  Energy firm to pay 12,000 customers about £90 each after its agents failed to keep appointments or turned up lateBritish Gas is to pay £1.1m to compensate customers after its agents missed appointments, breaching industry standards.The energy firm will make the payments to domestic and micro-business customers after its third-party agents missed appointments or turned up late, and did not compensate them as required by the regulator Ofgem. Continue reading...
  
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• British Airways cabin crew extend strike into August holiday peak

  20-07-2017 08:39 via theguardian.com
  Another two weeks of action in first two weeks of month will follow latest 14-day BA walkout over pay
  Striking British Airways cabin crew have announced a further two weeks of action for the first half of August in their battle over pay and sanctions at the airline.
  Crew in the lower-paid mixed fleet working out of Heathrow started the latest 14-day walkout on 19 July, their 46th day on strike since January, meaning a month of strikes will now take place during the summer holiday peak.Continue r
  
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• Should I cash in my endowment early to pay off my mortgage?

  20-07-2017 08:00 via theguardian.com
  I’m thinking of topping up its current cash-in value with a personal loan so I can pay off the mortgage when my deal endsQ The current fixed-rate deal on my interest-only mortgage of £47,000 will finish at the end of next March, and the entire mortgage term is due to end in July 2023. My endowment will mature a year before that and is on track to pay out £49,800 at the low rate and £57,300 at the mid rate. It has never performed better than the mid rate since it started,
  
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• Nike's swoosh to Amazon's smile: why we can't resist the power of logos

  20-07-2017 08:00 via theguardian.com
  Logos have invaded our lives whether we like it or not and can make or break a brand. But what are the secrets behind their influence?They might consist of little more than a piece of type. There could be a symbol. Perhaps there’s a splash of colour – but not always. From such seemingly unobtrusive elements, logos have invaded our lives, whether we like it or not.Related: A guide to branding your small businessContinue reading...
  
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• Why all women need to know what their colleagues earn

  20-07-2017 07:00 via theguardian.com
  The BBC salary revelations have exposed the gender pay gap among its top stars – could greater transparency across the board finally bring us full equality?
  A brief guide to getting a pay riseThe great reveal of the salaries of the BBC’s highest-paid stars has, for the most part, been grim fun. Should we not cheer that public sector workers are paid so generously? And can Alan Shearer’s most obvious of observations really be worth up to £450,000 a year? How many Clare Bal
  
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• A brief guide to getting a pay rise

  20-07-2017 07:00 via theguardian.com
  Are you being paid less than a colleague in the same job? Don’t accept the status quo – follow these steps to salary equalityWhy all women need to know what their colleagues earn
  Most of us can’t read about what our colleagues earn in the national press, so finding out if you’re being underpaid can be difficult. If your workplace has a union, start there – it should be able to get access to pay data for your employer and beyond. Otherwise, you could approach colleag
  
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