Financial news

• Frozen state pensions: MPs call for vote on ‘cruel’ policy

  14-04-2019 20:54 via theguardian.com
  Tory MP Sir Peter Bottomley says he hopes statutory instrument will allow debate
  When Anne Puckridge, a second world war veteran, moved to Canada in 2001 – having paid national insurance all her life – her British pension was £72.50 a week. Today, the 94-year-old is still drawing her state pension. It is still £72.50 a week.Canada is one of the 150 countries where the UK state pensions of British retirees are frozen by Britain – they do not increase in line with inf
  
  Read more

• Five ways to reduce financial anxiety

  14-04-2019 17:00 via theguardian.com
  The first step to tackling money problems is facing the facts – then you can create a budget and get help if you need itNot being sure of the extent of your cashflow problem will only stoke your anxiety. Schedule some time to go through all your statements and bills. Find out if you really are in the red and, if so, by how much. Knowing what you are dealing with is the first step to sorting it out. The mental health charity Mind suggests asking someone you trust to open the letters for you
  
  Read more

• TSB to unveil refund guarantee for fraud victims – a UK first

  14-04-2019 16:20 via theguardian.com
  Bank will ensure customers are reimbursed as it bids to tackle growing problem in digital ageTSB is poised to unveil a new “fraud refund guarantee” to ensure its 5.2 million customers are reimbursed in full if they are an innocent victim of a scam.The move – a first in the UK banking industry – will put customers at the heart of a new strategy to tackle the fast-growing problem of bank fraud in the digital age. Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• TSB to unveil refund guarantee for fraud victims

  14-04-2019 16:20 via theguardian.com
  Bank will ensure customers are reimbursed as it tackles growing problemTSB is poised to unveil a “fraud refund guarantee” to ensure its 5.2 million customers are reimbursed in full if they are an innocent victim of a scam.The move – a first in the UK banking industry – will put customers at the heart of a new strategy to tackle the fast-growing problem of bank fraud in the digital age. Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• World leaders ignore David Attenborough at their peril | Larry Eliott

  14-04-2019 12:42 via theguardian.com
  Nations should heed global warming warning – and also take lesson from Bretton Woods in 1944
  Fragile and delicate. The adjectives said it all. The mood at the spring meeting of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank was sombre. The global economy has weakened in the past six months and the Fund thinks the risks are skewed to the downside.The caution is justified, even though in some respects the outlook is less gloomy than the Fund suggests. For a start, there are some tentativ
  
  Read more

• The whole package: the food businesses binning plastics

  14-04-2019 12:30 via theguardian.com
  A zero-waste supermarket, a dairy farm and a London restaurant have become pioneers in the scrapping of single-use plasticsThe Clean Kilo, Birmingham Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• RSPCA faces fraud investigation at south-east London branch

  14-04-2019 12:24 via theguardian.com
  Exclusive: two men arrested as ex-trustee says scale of fraud could be as high as £450,000The RSPCA is facing renewed scrutiny of its governance after it emerged police are investigating suspected fraud involving hundreds of thousands of pounds at its south-east London branch.Two men have been arrested in connection with the alleged offences, and a forensic audit into the branch has been taking place. Ivan House, who resigned as a trustee in October last year amid concerns about the way th
  
  Read more

• Making your business LGBT-friendly is not just good – it's good for the bottom line | Gene Marks

  14-04-2019 11:00 via theguardian.com
  It’s not just the right thing to do. Most employees would leave their employer for one that was more inclusiveHaving LGBT-friendly policies in your company is not only the right thing to do. It’s also good for business. That’s the conclusion from a report issued this week by the US Chamber of Commerce Foundation. Related: Owners must protect their businesses from ransomware before it's too late | Gene MarksContinue reading...
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Sexism in advertising: ‘They talk about diversity, but they don’t want to change’

  14-04-2019 09:00 via theguardian.com
  Pay gaps, sexist ads, a culture of silence and fear… as #timeTo, the industry’s answer to #MeToo, gathers momentum, we talk to senior women working in – and trying to change – a profession still notoriously male-dominated... and white•Read the execs on the industry’s worst campaigns hereIn 2017, Victoria Brooks, the vice-president of Bloom, a network for women in advertising and communications, had an idea. Aware that there were some subjects its members found
  
  Read more

• Fines and a frantic life on the road – the lot of Amazon’s harried staff

  14-04-2019 09:00 via theguardian.com
  We talk to depot staff and drivers who are working in shocking conditions and having their pay docked for minor mistakesThe accident was the final straw. Mark Wright*, a supervisor at an Amazon depot, had called in a delivery driver to cover an absent colleague’s shift. Depot managers ordered the driver to load his consignment of parcels on the kerbside rather than in the warehouse where loading normally takes place.As he heaved a large parcel into the van’s side door, he slipped off
  
  Read more

• Unilever’s quarterly results could divide opinion like Marmite | Simon Goodley

  14-04-2019 08:00 via theguardian.com
  Firm’s ads always amuse but its joke writers may not be enough to keep uneasy investors entertainedThere are times when you’d be forgiven for thinking that the role of the consumer goods giant Unilever is to entertain its punters, as much as flog them stuff.It brands have been associated with some of the most memorable ads of our age, whether they be for PG Tips in the 1970s (“Avez-vous un cuppa?”), several controversial Pot Noodle commercials or its recent satire on Brex
  
  Read more

• Unilever’s joke writers may not be enough to keep uneasy investors entertained

  14-04-2019 08:00 via theguardian.com
  The company’s ads are always amusing, but this week’s quarterly results could divide opinion like MarmiteThere are times when you’d be forgiven for thinking that the role of the consumer goods giant Unilever is to entertain its punters, as much as flog them stuff.It brands have been associated with some of the most memorable ads of our age, whether they be for PG Tips in the 1970s (“Avez-vous un cuppa?”), several controversial Pot Noodle commercials or its recent sa
  
  Read more

• The white paper on online harms is a global first. It has never been more needed | John Naughton

  14-04-2019 08:00 via theguardian.com
  The tech industry may rail against the DCMS’s document but it’s high time they were brought to bookOn Monday last week, the government published its long-awaited white paper on online harms. It was launched at the British Library by the two cabinet ministers responsible for it – Jeremy Wright of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and the home secretary, Sajid Javid. Wright was calm, modest and workmanlike in his introduction. Javid was, well, more macho
  
  Read more

• How (gravy) train operators make millions while failing to pay their way

  14-04-2019 08:00 via theguardian.com
  As Virgin gets shunted into the sidelines, it is high time we looked again at the rail franchise systemIn 2012, when Sir Richard Branson was first threatened with the prospect of being kicked off the west coast franchise, he offered to run it for free. “I ... would happily run the extended franchise on a not-for-profit basis, or donate profits to charity,” he wrote.At this point, Virgin could easily have shouldered a few barren months or even years. By 2012, Branson’s group had
  
  Read more

• May I have a word about ... the confusion caused by City terminology

  14-04-2019 06:59 via theguardian.com
  Explanations by those in the know in the Square Mile do little to clarify what they are trying to sayThe ways of the City are often beguiling, but more often bewildering. What, for example, does “random location omnibus” mean? This was in a newspaper report on the Bank of England’s inflation attitudes survey on whether interest rates will go up or down this year.The Office for National Statistics offers the following: “This robust methodology achieves a level of data qual
  
  Read more

Follow @financialnwsUK on Twitter!