Financial news

• Trump 'working' with Xi Jinping to save jobs at Chinese company hit by US ban

  13-05-2018 22:14 via theguardian.com
  ZTE lost access to US suppliers over Iran and North Korea sanctionsReversal is concession to Beijing ahead of high-profile trade talksIn a surprise policy reversal, Donald Trump said on Sunday he had instructed his commerce department to help get a Chinese telecommunications company “back into business”, after his government cut off access to its US suppliers.Related: US threatens European companies with sanctions after Iran deal pulloutContinue reading...
  
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• Music festivals and mixology: how cruises got cool

  13-05-2018 16:00 via theguardian.com
  They have always been associated with the grey pound, but now cruise ships are trying to attract a millennial crowd. Will smaller boats, late-night stop-offs and better brunches tempt young people on board?aThink of cruise holidays and a whole host of images spring to mind. Endless buffets. Crushed velvet upholstery. Sex on the beach (the cocktail, obviously). His and hers dressing gowns. Jane McDonald. And, most of all, lots and lots of older people, from well-heeled fiftysomethings to time-ric
  
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• Wealthiest households in Westminster failing to pay extra £833 in tax

  13-05-2018 14:49 via theguardian.com
  Only 2% have made annual ‘community contribution’ requested by council leaderJust 350 of the 15,600 wealthiest households in Westminster, one of the country’s richest boroughs, have answered the local authority’s call to voluntarily pay extra council tax to help tackle the homelessness crisis in the heart of London. In February, the Westminster council leader, Nickie Aiken, wrote to all residents in the most expensive band H properties to ask them to consider paying an ex
  
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• Are you paying the price for loyalty ? Why switching may actually save you money

  13-05-2018 14:43 via feedproxy.google.com
  LOYALTY has never paid when dealing with major financial institutions, and now even insurance companies admit this is the case.
  
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• Royal Bank of Scotland will never pay back the £45.5bn of taxpayer support, says GEOFF HO

  13-05-2018 14:38 via feedproxy.google.com
  ROYAL Bank of Scotland provided some cheer for its long suffering shareholders last week, when it announced it had been fined $4.9 billion by US regulators, which removed the last major hurdle to its privatisation.
  
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• Small business lender eyes Europe in its plan to expand

  13-05-2018 14:29 via feedproxy.google.com
  SPECIALIST small business finance group Liberis is looking to boost its lending volumes by 50 per cent as it eyes up expansion into Europe, according to chief executive Rob Straathof.
  
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• Britain's wealthiest get richer by £64 billion in a year

  13-05-2018 14:29 via feedproxy.google.com
  BRITAIN'S wealthiest saw their combined fortunes rise by £65.4 billion, or 10.2 per cent, last year to £725.5 billion, according to the latest Sunday Times Rich List.
  
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• Mothercare shop closures: Baby retailer to close a third of its stores

  13-05-2018 14:21 via feedproxy.google.com
  STRUGGLING mother and baby goods retailer Mothercare is expected to announce that it is looking to close a third of its stores, at its annual results on Thursday.
  
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• Banks lack a plan for the end of Quantitive Easing

  13-05-2018 14:18 via feedproxy.google.com
  CENTRAL bankers have "no idea" how to unwind quantitative easing without hurting the economy in the process, Jupiter Fund Management chief executive Maarten Slendebroek warns.
  
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• Firms miss out on £1bn rates relief because of flaws in the system

  13-05-2018 14:00 via feedproxy.google.com
  RETAILERS have been denied business rates reductions worth nearly £1 billion because of government caps on how much they can get, according to real estate adviser Altus.
  
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• China is a 'great opportunity' for the UK says Chinese conglomerate

  13-05-2018 13:58 via feedproxy.google.com
  CHINA is a "natural partner" for post-Brexit Britain according to Chinese conglomerate Tencent, which is best known for co-producing the BBC's groundbreaking documentary Blue Planet II.
  
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• 'From coal to clean' – UK does not need to turn to gas, says WWF

  13-05-2018 13:09 via theguardian.com
  Report suggests renewables, battery storage and flexible technologies can replace coal plantsThe UK has no need to build new large gas-fired power stations to replace the coal plants that the government has pledged to switch off by 2025, the World Wide Fund for Nature has argued.The gap can instead be filled by renewables, battery storage and flexible technologies, allowing the UK to go from “coal to clean” and skip new gas completely, according to a report by the environmental group
  
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• Is Bordeaux’s reign as the king of wines over? | David Williams

  13-05-2018 13:00 via theguardian.com
  With Bordeaux an ‘investment vehicle for the 1%’, it’s time to seek out future classics from Argentina, New Zealand and South AfricaNews from Bordeaux used to dominate this time of year. It’s the season when producers in the region host their equivalent of the Cannes film festival – the en primeur tastings. Samples of wines harvested the previous autumn are shown off to thousands of members of the wine trade and press, whose reactions help shape the wines’ rel
  
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• Sat Bains: 'We are a working-class two Michelin-star restaurant'

  13-05-2018 12:30 via theguardian.com
  Under a flyover off the A52 you’ll find Michelin-star chef Sat Bains. Here he talks about his Punjabi heritage and why Brexit might be the ‘nail in the coffin’ of British food cultureAs with all the most seductive ideas, Sat Bains imagined his restaurant long before it became true. He was in his early 20s, working in a hotel in his hometown of Derby when he first started reading the Caterer magazine “and about Nico Ladenis and Raymond Blanc, all that”, and the idea
  
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• Bigger mortgages for greener homes? Yep, that's right | Adam Vaughan

  13-05-2018 11:30 via theguardian.com
  Welsh scheme will factor in home’s energy efficiency into lenders’ affordability calculationsBorrowers will be able to take out a bigger mortgage when buying greener properties for the first time, under a pioneering scheme to encourage energy efficiency.Research has found that factoring in the efficiency of a home into lenders’ affordability calculations could allow them to increase loans by £11,500 because buyers’ electricity and gas bills will be lower. Continue r
  
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• Has Royal Mail got the answer to BT’s pensions problem?

  13-05-2018 08:00 via theguardian.com
  The telecoms firm has a tough plan to tackle an £11bn deficit. But the postal service is thinking rather more creativelyThe last time we heard on these pages from the family of Beatrice Bellman – Maureen Lipman’s carping character Beattie in those old British Telecom advertisements – her tribe was troubled. Henpecked son Melvyn was approaching an extremely well-earned retirement, while grandson Anthony was in the prime of his career, having heroically shrugged off his mem
  
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• First Direct offers seven-day switch – but it’s been a nightmare

  13-05-2018 08:00 via theguardian.com
  Moving direct debits over has involved a string of calls to the likes of British Gas and BTI recently switched my bank account to First Direct and despite the seven-day switch guarantee it has been a nightmare. Only a week in I had to deal with three failed direct debits which involved lengthy calls to the likes of British Gas and BT. First Direct, despite the guarantee, cannot give me any assurance that this won’t continue with my many other direct debits. It is blaming Bacs and a recent
  
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• Don’t let bitcoin greed blind you to the potential of blockchain technology | John Naughton

  13-05-2018 08:00 via theguardian.com
  The mechanism that underpins cryptocurrencies could help to provide secure public records in countries susceptible to corruptionBecause I write about technology I am regularly assailed by people who are exercised about so-called “cryptocurrencies” like bitcoin, which most of them regard as a scam. But when I reply that while bitcoin might be newsworthy, the really important story concerns the blockchain technology that underpins it, their eyes glaze over and they start looking for th
  
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• The UK economy’s slowdown is clear to all. Except the Bank of England

  13-05-2018 07:59 via theguardian.com
  Governor Mark Carney tells us time and time again that interest rates will rise, but will anyone believe him in the future?Mark Carney is not so much an unreliable boyfriend as a schoolboy who keeps getting his homework wrong. The Bank of England governor gave his quarterly review of the economy last week and yet again confounded earlier expectations that he would increase the cost of borrowing.Whereas in the past Carney has confidently predicted that the economy is robust and capable of absorbi
  
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• Our new working class needs help with new struggles | Kenan Malik

  13-05-2018 06:59 via theguardian.com
  More insecure and less organised than ever, its members need supportWhat is it to be working class? The conventional image is of the industrial worker, usually male and white. But, as Claire Ainsley, executive director of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, shows in her book The New Working Class, such traditional workers make up less than a third of the actual working class. Four out of 10 workers are in the service industry, while 30% form the “precariat” – lacking job security a
  
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