Silicon Valley Bank, the 16th largest bank in the US, was shut down by the country’s regulators last week, and we’ve now learned that HSBC has moved to buy the UK arm of the collapsed institution. Since the bank specialises in lending to technology companies, the rescue by HSBC will be a huge relief to …
Jeremy Hunt, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, has delivered his Budget, in which he unveiled big changes to pensions and childcare as part of an effort to tempt people back into work. Here’s our summary of the main announcements: Pensions The lifetime allowance – currently £1,073,100 – to be abolished The tax-free annual allowance for …
The headlines have been full of grim economic news for a while. From talk of imminent recession and staff shortages to higher interest rates and industrial disputes, there’s been plenty of reasons for worry and alarm, not least among business leaders. So it’s interesting to note that, according to the S&P Global CIPS Flash UK …
Money worries can have a devastating impact on a person’s life, causing untold stress and heartache day after day. So it’s really important that you’re not left feeling as if your finances are like a runaway juggernaut: out of control. Otherwise, you leave yourself vulnerable to a host of further financial problems, from growing debt …
The word “recession” hasn’t been far from the headlines for quite a while now, as the economy struggles to bounce back from the pandemic and soaring inflation hits consumer confidence. But the latest figures have raised some eyebrows. According to the latest official data, the UK economy shrank by 0.3 per cent in the three …
According to a recent report in City AM, there were 1.8m job vacancies advertised in the UK in the week to May 1st, up roughly 15% on the same period a month earlier. The report stated that recruiters were ‘in overdrive’ as they struggled to fill the vacancies, with Neil Carberry, Chief Executive of the …
In the middle of March, Russia was due to make an interest payment of $117m (£89m) on two bonds denominated in dollars. There was some dispute over the payment: Russia said it had made the payment, the investors holding the bonds said they hadn’t received the money. The papers generally reported that if Russia didn’t …
Introduction April was not a good month for world stock markets. We report on a dozen major markets in the Bulletin: they were all down in the month, with the honorable exception of the UK’s FTSE-100 index, which managed a gain of just 29 points. Why was it such a poor month? The war in …
Publisher, entrepreneur and diplomat, Benjamin Franklin was almost certainly the most-quoted figure of his generation. He is popularly credited with ‘a penny saved is a penny earned’ and, in Advice to a Young Tradesman, Franklin wrote, ‘Remember that time is money’. In November 1789, Franklin wrote to a friend in France: ‘Our new constitution is …
We have written previously about the changes employees want to see post-pandemic. They want a better work/life balance; they want to work for companies whose values they share – and they want their employers to recognise that it’s not just the pay packet at the end of the month. Other things are equally important. These …
