Three weeks ago we answered a reader question on This is Money: The cheapest energy deal is with a provider I've never heard of, is it risky to go with them? The asking of that question, the existence of the safety net, the collapse of GB Energy, and what happens next, all combines to tell an interesting story about Britain's energy market. It's got very easy to set up an energy firm. ...read

Every time I use online banking to pay a bill or transfer cash, it fills me with dread. You need only get one digit wrong and your money could disappear into someone else's account. The name you type into the payee box means absolutely nothing. It's only there for your records - your bank never bothers to check. ...read

It was not the kind of Autumn Statement we had come to expect under George Osborne - all fire and brimstone, all change, more complexity - but Philip Hammond's debut was not without its nasty side. While no doubt saving his more draconian announcements for next year's Autumn Budget - goodbye higher rate tax relief on pension contributions? - his decision to hike up Insurance Premium Tax from 10 per cent to 12 per cent was both unexpected and spiteful. It represents an attack on prudence, a financial discipline that you would think a Conservative Government would embrace wholeheartedly. ...read

Sterling is still 10 per cent down against the euro since the referendum. It has recovered 5 per cent in November, which means all those warnings about higher prices may need to be revised. ...read

Both burly entrepreneurs are investors in the Aussie clothing website Mysale Group, and both also have intimate knowledge of audit firm Grant Thornton. Green partly relied on the reputation of Grant Thornton for due diligence done on Dominic Chappell and his Retail Acquisitions Group before selling BHS for £1. ...read

Philip Hammond delivered an Autumn Statement without gimmicks. That alone merits three cheers. Ill-thought through policies aimed at grabbing a headline became too common under his predecessor. But that does not mean it was a statement without controversy. One such was the decision to ban letting agents from charging tenants fees. Shares in estate agents slumped. Cue carping from the industry. ...read

Landlords are always ripe for a kicking in some circles, so it should come as no surprise that they were swiftly painted as potential future villains in the ban on tenant fees. But landlords have as much right to be angry as tenants over letting agency fees and it is easy for them to fight back. ...read

One can only feel huge admiration for fanatical skier Gareth Williams and two friends who met at Manchester University and went on to build Skyscanner, one of Britain's few unicorns. Together with a team of engineers they created the algorithms, assembled and crunched the data and built a website designed to help the traveller and no-one else. ...read

In the last few months some of Britain' s best start-ups in artificial intelligence and other advanced technologies have had to look far afield for finance including China. ...read

What faith can we place in economic forecasts? For much of this year the British citizens and business have been bombarded with downbeat projections. In the run-up to the referendum campaign almost all the serious forecasters were in a bleak mood. Former Chancellor George Osborne predicted half-a-million job losses, the Bank of England warned of a technical recession and almost all the private sector forecasters slashed the outlook for growth. ...read

On the credit side, Sherwood was one of the architects of Goldman's great leap forward in Europe and a big contributor to the City's pre-eminence as a financial centre. On the debit side, he will be seen as having failed to protect Goldman from the ethical pratfalls which have sullied its reputation. ...read

The Government, in a desperate attempt to reform a near-broken system labouring under a backlog of nearly 300,000 appeals, is considering drastic action. From next April, it is planning simply to deny business owners the right to appeal against their rates bill even if it is incorrect by up to 15 per cent, the intention being to cut costs and speed up the system. ...read

Figures suggest this year's borrowing will come in at £8bn or so above target. Hammond's flexibility also has been diminished by a slowdown in asset sales, partly caused by the Deutsche Bank crisis which hit share prices of Lloyds and Royal Bank of Scotland. Slower growth affects government borrowing in two ways. It reduces tax income and raises 'transfer payments' such as social security and unemployment benefit. ...read

It was a bit disconcerting to hear the former MP and Shadow Chancellor pronouncing on steps to curb the Bank of England. Balls rightly can claim some ownership of Bank independence. ...read

Twitter may be a popular place to exchange insults but has been a poor investment with the
shares soaring to $70 before collapsing to $18. Recruitment site LinkedIn is in an anti-trust
battle in Europe where a buyout by Microsoft
is being questioned. And Facebook may be booming but it is having to eat humble pie over its propagation of 'false' news and has admitted the marketing data it provides advertisers has been miscalculated. ...read

Our wonderful NHS gives us free healthcare in our working lives - but, as soon as our mental and physical powers start to diminish, the state washes its hands of us. Despite paying taxes and National Insurance for years, the elderly are forced to take crude tests to decide if the NHS will fund their needs. ...read

Indeed, if it were not for the double whammy of higher crude oil prices set in dollars, consumer price inflation would be even more negligible. ...read

For much of 2016 policymakers, including the Prime Minister Theresa May, fretted about low and negative interest rates and subdued bond returns suggesting deflation and slump. But in the few days since Trumponomics arrived on the scene yields - interest rate returns - on American, UK German and Japanese debt have zipped up from record lows. ...read

There will be many reasons some Americans voted for Trump (and Brexit). But I believe the great economic insecurity and a perception of unfairness is the underlying cause. Sadly neither Trump (nor Brexit) are the answer to this widespread anxiety. Threatening free trade, and yes that includes free movement of people, will not solve these issues. ...read

Wall Street already is exuberant at Donald Trump's campaign commitment to sweep away legislation designed to usher in an era of safety and consumer protection for the financial markets. The Dodd-Frank act was intended to make sure abuses that led to the financial crisis never happen again. It runs to some 2,500 pages and is considered over-elaborate, costly and cumbersome. But presence on the statute books has not prevented American banks from bouncing back quickly from the nadir reached in the aftermath of the crisis. ...read

Janet Yellen's current term ends in 2018 so Trump will have the chance to pick a new chairman. In the interim the White House will have the chance to fill two vacancies and potentially a third - the person to head the new office of banking supervision. The immediate question is what will the US central bank do next month? The uncertainty of the transition to a new, very different, presidency may now weigh on the minds of members of the interest rate-setting Open Market Committee. ...read

Instead of wittering on about the need to preserve the single market and the customs union and wearing sackcloth and ashes chief executive George Weston is gearing up Britain's food manufacturing and selling Ryvita crackers, Twinings tea and Ovaltine from Mexico to Australia. ...read

So much vitriol has been expended in the US presidential election campaign on the malodorous character flaws of Donald Trump and careless emails of Hillary Clinton that we know less about the likely economic policy of these two candidates than in any other presidential election. ...read

It is one of the great social and economic shifts of our times. All of us - and the young especially - are spending less on goods and more on services. Yesterday we had a snapshot of that shift in company results. Next, which challenges Marks & Spencer as the UK's largest clothing retailer, found its third-quarter total sales were down 3.5 per cent and its retail sales nearly 6 per cent. JustEat, simply a fast food ordering and delivery service, had sales up 28 per cent. ...read

His decision to hang around for an extra 12 months beyond his five-year term, which ends in June 2018, looks a little grudging. If anything, the collection of Brexiteers who deemed Carney unfit for office - William Hague, Michael Gove, Jacob Rees-Mogg and Daniel Hannan - strengthened the governor's hand in deciding his own leaving date. ...read

The governor of the Bank of England is not in charge of the UK economy - we have a Government. He is not even solely in charge of interest rates - that is a decision made by a nine member committee of economists which he chairs. These are statements of the obvious. But they merit stating clearly because, given the attacks made on Mark Carney by politicians and some pundits in recent weeks, one could be forgiven for believing that he is the architect of all our economic woes. ...read

One might have expected Willie Walsh to be over the moon that after decades of delay a British government finally is willing to give the green light to a third runway at Heathrow. But as chief executive of International Consolidated Airlines Group, owner of British Airways, he knows there is as much to lose as to gain. ...read

On the vast trading floors of the investment banks the volatility in bonds and currencies generated by Britain's historic June 23 vote will bring a big smile to bankers contemplating 2016 bonuses. ...read

Lord Grabiner QC, who was called in to look at
matters, clearly was not entirely convinced of
the integrity of what was done. It speaks well of Governor Mark Carney's determination to clean the stables when he arrived in 2013 and the willingness of SFO chief David Green to tackle difficult issues. ...read

Quizzed on whether he would extend his stay as governor beyond the end of his original five year term, which ends in 2018, he declined to be railroaded, saying he needed time to reflect, recognising that being boss of the Bank of England required 'attention and devotion'. By failing to close the door on speculation that he may leave in 2018 rather than hang on until 2021, Carney has created a known unknown. That could be as detrimental for the pound and government bonds as speculation on political interference or a change of mandate. ...read

Donald Trump wants to Make America Great Again. The top nine of the largest companies in the world are all American, the top five all part of the high-tech revolution. By contrast the most valuable European company, Royal Dutch Shell is number 18 and the largest purely British one, HSBC, is number 39. ...read

But behind the specifics of the BHS case lies the looming issue of pension deficits in many of our 6,000 company schemes and to be fair to MPs, many used the occasion to raise these issues. They were, however, largely lost in the clamour for Green to lose his gong. As one MP said, these deficits are estimated to stand at almost £1 trillion. ...read

The nearly two-decade truce between Westminster and the Bank of England is being rudely shattered by ill-judged attacks on the institution and governor Mark Carney from Tory politicians. ...read

What happens in the US - still the locomotive
of the global economy despite sub-optimal
growth in recent times - is profoundly important
to investors. The dollar is the de facto reserve
currency and US Treasuries the gold standard.
Anything which disturbs that stability at a time
when the eurozone remains in the doldrums and the newly rich economies from China to Brazil are misfiring is deeply disturbing. ...read

It has all started to go horribly wrong at Britain's biggest volume housebuilder Barratt. A regulatory announcement revealed Alastair Baird has been arrested and suspended from the company after an internal audit discovered 'misconduct' in the awarding and managing of contracts. Another former Barratt employee has also been arrested. Meanwhile, at the High Court a former Barratt person, Michael Neill Fitzpatrick, is involved in a civil action, which claims he was in receipt of 'secret profits, bribes or commissions' from sub-contractors. ...read

Brexiteers cannot hail the rise in the FTSE driven by companies with earnings in dollars and euros and - at the same time - attack Unilever for trying to maintain the euro value of its profits in the face of a falling pound. It is simply incoherent and sadly all too typical of the Brexit case. Unilever is not alone and nor has it acted entirely unreasonably. Overseas suppliers who provide the international products we all buy in huge quantities will all be looking for price rises. ...read

As a good an executive as James Murdoch may have once been at satellite broadcaster Sky his re-appointment as chairman in January was always going to be a huge mistake. Now he has received a bloody nose from nearly 30 per cent of shareholders which hardly represents a vote of confidence given that family controlled Twenty-First Century Fox controls a chunky 39.1 per cent of the shares. ...read

Yesterday, some of the City's biggest fund managers said they will vote against board appointments in companies that do not have enough female executives. ...read

Last month it looked as if its founder, chief executive Jack Dorsey, had discovered an escape hatch with speculation of a bidding war by other Californian giants. ...read

The 17 per cent tumble in the pound, post-Brexit, has made the top FTSE350 companies and beyond particularly susceptible to a hard currency bid from the US, Japan or China. Britain's leader in the technology of things ARM exited into the hands of Japan's Softbank while the Tories were still sorting themselves out over the summer. ...read

The dominant message of this year's international financial meetings in Washington was that it was time to end top down economic and financial policies, downplay globalisation and think more about so-called 'distributional issues' - those who have been left behind. Farage and Trump have tapped into the anger provoked by technology change and global trade which have left large swathes of low middle-income families across the United States and Europe in a rut. ...read

Perhaps the slump in the pound is a one-off fluke, a moment of madness caused by a deranged computer program or a fat-fingered trade by a clumsy trader. That may account for the sudden and sharp crash in sterling in Asia late on Thursday night. It does not account for the longer downward trend in the value of the pound, which accelerated even in the cold light of Friday morning. This is the cost of Brexit. ...read

Theresa May has promised to clean up capitalism but the governance of companies doing vital work for the public sector and local authorities has been found badly wanting. We may all regard the economic policies of the Corbyn claque, with the heavy reliance on the state to do everything, as stultifying and a step back into darkness. ...read

Interest rates in the US are moving up and the betting is that there could be an increase as early as December, particularly if Hillary Clinton wins the election offering a degree of economic continuity. The latest US jobless figures, which showed employment rose by 156,000 last month, are not decisive but show a still robust US economy and a risk of inflation. ...read

In much the same way as the Tories chose a woman in Theresa May to lead us out of Europe so Sir Philip Hampton and the board of GSK have chosen a women Emma Walmsley as chief executive. ...read

The passport arrangements for City-based banks, which allow them to operate across the European Union on a single licence, were always going to be a sensitive Brexit issue. ...read

There is increased activity in this area, says Richard Parkin, pensions expert at financial services group Fidelity, as employers attempt to rein in the ballooning future liabilities of these gold-plated pensions. One way to chip away at these costs is for companies to end relationships with members, especially former employees who have left their accrued benefits in a fund until they retire. ...read

Input price inflation for August was 7.6 per cent. This figure measures the cost companies are paying for fuel, energy and so on - and this sharp hike in costs is not something that can be ignored. The main reason for the jump was oil prices which were falling this time last year. The weaker pound - making imported raw materials more expensive - is also likely to be a factor and with the pound still down more than 10 per cent since late June, that pressure is likely to continue. ...read

Fining banks is all very well, except it is not the bankers, who caused the mess, but shareholders and taxpayers who suffer. A senior UK banker once told me that bad behaviour at banks would not be resolved until co-workers, customers and the public saw top executives carted off to chokey in handcuffs. That still has not happened. ...read

Wilson, 57, yesterday bought 50,000 shares in the firm, which markets and supplies floorcovering products such as carpets and lino across Europe, at a price of 447.1p each. ...read

Momentum in the UK economy speedily has been restored since the June 23 vote as the latest labour market data shows with employment increasing by 174,000 over the last three months. ...read

The Prime Minister's doubts about China's involvement as one-third investor in the Hinkley has re-opened a Pandora's box of objections around misfiring French technology at Flamanville in Brittany and the high strike price for electricity generated which could, over time, yield huge revenues for EDF and other investors. ...read

This would weaken the social contract between corporations and their workforce and damage trust in pensions saving. A group with Tata's global resources should not be allowed to dump pensioners into the Pension Protection Fund nor should it be allowed to write its own rules. It needs to be a good corporate citizen and write an unconditional cheque. ...read

It is no exaggeration to say the big retail names are facing a revolution. Consumers became bargain hunters during the recession and have remained so. Overseas competitors with lower cost models - think Aldi and Lidl - have invaded and the online explosion has allowed upstart competitors to establish themselves faster. Few of our major retailers appreciated the challenge that online would come to pose. Even fewer acted quickly enough to adjust their old-fashioned bricks and mortar strategy. ...read

Anyone expecting Philip Hammond to flash his contactless payment card on November 23, when he delivers the autumn statement, likely will be disappointed. ...read

There is a negative feedback loop, which started at working conditions, has reached the performance of the company and the share price and contaminated the boardroom. Profits are dropping sharply. The latest forecast is 20 per cent down at £300m for the current financial year and we cannot be sure that is the whole story. Sweetheart deals for family members and a lack of transparency around some of Ashley's transactions on the company's behalf place Sports Direct out of the boundaries of what is acceptable. ...read

Predictably Mike Ashley has sought to draw the fire of his Parliamentary and City critics with the promise of social, welfare and pay reforms at the now notorious Shirebrook warehouse in Derbyshire. ...read

There may be no love lost between British teams and Australia on the sports field but Theresa May has rediscovered who our real business friends are at the G20 summit. ...read

In the last year or so we have seen US activists bust their way on to the board of Rolls-Royce, seize control of venerated Aberdeen Asset Management and take charge of venture capital fund Electra. In the latest tussle, the hedge fund Elliott has bullied its way into contention for the hand of high street discount store Poundland and Toscafund is beating up on the board of Speedy Hire. ...read

This is the very same Administration which in 2010 shamelessly exploited the Deepwater Horizon accident in the Gulf of Mexico to unleash anti-British sentiment against BP costing investors up to £50bn and almost driving it into bankruptcy. Indeed, the Americans have been absolutely relentless in the pursuit of European companies. In 2012 GlaxoSmithKline was fined £2.3bn by the Food & Drug Administration over a variety of ethical failings in the sale of medicines in the US. ...read

This is an ill-conceived deal conducted with undue haste, which places huge trust in the hands of the new owners, the indebted Japanese tech conglomerate SoftBank. It is an economic error which flies directly in the face of the Prime Minister's promise to rein in overseas takeovers. ...read

The most disagreeable image of the summer for me (watched from a hotel room in Israel) was the confrontation between Sir Philip Green and Sky journalist David Bowden of the Greek island of Ithaca. It was not Green's salty language which was disturbing, - that was par for the course - but the hulking image of his new superyacht Lionheart lurking in the background. ...read

A report from the respected Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit has said that pursuing cheaper alternatives to Hinkley could save Britain £1billion a year. Just four offshore wind farms could provide as much electricity as Hinkley Point, claims the ECIU, with gas-powered plants and interconnectors to other countries filling any shortfall. ...read

Daily Mail City Editor ALEX BRUMMER says as more and more economic data has come in it has become increasingly clear the 'experts' who predicted dire outcomes for Britain's prosperity may be wrong. He points out the authoritative YouGov/Cebr consumer confidence index climbed at its fastest monthly rate since February 2013. Production of British-made cars climbed in July and one of Britain's biggest housebuilders, Persimmon, reported a hefty 29 percent jump in first-half profits. ...read

Mike Ashley and Sports Direct must be considered really naughty to have sparked a public intervention by the Investor Forum representing fund managers with a vast portfolio of £14.5trillion under their control. ...read

Antonio Horta-Osorio makes much of the fact that his personal life is a private matter. But when the indiscretions take place in a luxury hotel in Singapore on bank business it becomes a matter of public interest. ...read

The BHS disaster has done immeasurable harm to the retailer's 11,000 employees, the 21,000 members of retirement schemes, suppliers, the High Street and the reputation of business. Nevertheless, because BHS was part of a personal fiefdom, not owned by the public through their pension funds and savings, it is possible to argue that management has more latitude to act in its own selfish, if horribly disagreeable, fashion. ...read

Calling on the industry to follow his lead, Woodford claimed bonuses distort behaviour, encourage short-termism, and indeed recklessness. And he is not alone in his thinking. A former Barclays chairman admitted to me years ago that he and his top executives hated the bonus structure because they cost so much, were horribly complex and caused friction between staff over who gets what. ...read

Everything in pensions takes time, not least the Pensions Regulator, but Sir Philip must realise this is not going away and that if he ever wants to sail into an island idyll in peace again he needs to get his chequebook out sooner rather than later. As Labour's Iain Wright MP, co-chairman of the committee probing the BHS debacle, said: 'We don't want this story to go away.' Green does and he can make it so by stumping up more cash than the £80million-on-a-promise he has offered. ...read

According to the Project Fear prognosis, the UK would need an emergency Brexit Budget to put up taxes, petrol prices and slash NHS spending to plug a £40bn black hole in the event of an out vote. Where are Cameron and co now to explain the new job figures out yesterday showing the number of people working in the UK is the highest since records began 45 years ago? Or that the stock market is close to new highs and the pound is holding steady at $1.30? ...read

Even the hint of a bid for Danone some years ago had the bureaucrats from les grands ecoles spluttering over their croissants, claiming that such a deal would be blocked at all cost. The Danone yoghurt-making giant was even described by one minister as a 'flower' of French industry. The talks between PepsiCo and Danone never went ahead. ...read

Wells Fargo is going ahead with a £300m London office, Japan's SoftBank bid £24bn for ARM, and UK drug giants, GlaxoSmithKline and AstraZeneca, confirmed big investment plans. ...read

Whichever way you analyse it, Government policy on pensions is in a right old royal mess. Take company pension schemes, once the pride of the Western world. A combination of lax regulation, low interest rates and frugal employers has allowed deficits on defined benefit work schemes to build to frightening proportions, a stratospheric £408 billion at the last count. ...read

The final curtain comes down on BHS this weekend (or should that be the final shutter?) as the group's last stores close and its remaining staff head for the Jobcentre. The pensions row will, of course, rumble on, but what may be crucial now is that the significance of this debacle extends far beyond BHS. The state of the UK's defined benefit pension schemes is grim. The deficit across all pension funds is now reportedly more than £1trillion. ...read

A senior adviser of China's nuclear giant is due to appear in a US court next week to face charges of recruiting American experts to obtain sensitive nuclear technology. ...read

Antonio Horta-Osorio's relationship with education guru Dr Wendy Piatt was not with a colleague so questions of conflict of interest don't come into the picture. However it poses a problem for the board. ...read

In seven years, the highest rate on bank savings accounts and Isas has fallen from more than 5 per cent to 2.2 per cent. That's a loss of more than £1,000 annual interest on a £40,000 retirement fund. That's a loss of more than £1,000 annual interest on a £40,000 retirement fund - which is no good if you needed it to pay the bills. ...read

The clock is speeding up on Softbank's £24billion takeover of Britain's chip champion ARM and the concern must be that it will happen by default with no public venting of the arguments. ...read

The health of the US particularly is important to post-Brexit Britain as it is our biggest single trading partner and one with which we actually run a trade surplus. ...read

The Bank of England has done its bit, now it is the Chancellor's turn. The Bank had little choice but to cut interest rates last week - the economic figures all pointed to the need for some extra slack in monetary policy. But the time has long passed since the Bank's rate-setting Monetary Policy Committee could be counted on to rescue the economy single-handed. ...read

The UK could, for instance, cut National Insurance rates (encouraging the hiring of workers) for two years, and pay the bill for lost revenues by turning on the printing presses. Similarly, instead of paying for social housing out of the public purse it could simply finance such projects with cash. ...read

The speed with which Japanese company Softbank plans to bring Britain's technology champion and holder of hundreds of brilliant patents under its full control is impressive. Moreover, doing if over the summer, when the politicians are focused on bronzing and families, is even cleverer. Of course it should not be allowed to happen and the government and the Commons need to be shaken off the sunbeds ...read

A big economic lesson of the turbulent years since the financial crisis of 2008 is that central banks cannot afford to get behind the curve. Former governor of the Bank of England Mervyn King was criticised for being too slow to cut interest rates to the bone in the financial crisis leaving it until June 2009. An earlier move might have softened the impact of the Great Recession. ...read

Amid the tumult the mists which have clouded the market valuation of BP for the last six years finally seem to be clearing. No corporation in the world will be more glad to see the back of Barack Obama in the White House. It was Obama's environmental grandstanding, after the devastating oil spill, which gave the green light to every 'good ole boy' in the Deep South and the corrupt Louisiana courts to punish BP. The final bill, after another £4billion or so of provisions in the second quarter, comes in at a whopping £47billion. ...read

For young people growing up on Teesside at that time, the future looked utterly bleak. Like many of my contemporaries, I left the area as soon as I could in search of better prospects down south. I felt as though the spectre of the 1980s had returned last year when the SSI steelworks at nearby Redcar were closed, with the loss of around 3,000 jobs at the plant and at its supplier companies. At least, this time around, there is practical assistance in the form of an SSI Taskforce set up, with a multi-million pound funding package from the Government, to help former employees and their families. ...read

By the standards of often disappointing, mealy-mouthed official reports into corporate failure and wrongdoing, the select committee document sets new standards for plain-speaking. It is now abundantly clear that Philip Green - owner of many of the most famous fashion names on our High Streets - knowingly sold BHS to an untrustworthy thrice-bankrupt for £1, only to watch the company go broke under its new owner with a £571million pensions deficit. As Green and his wife Lady Tina luxuriate this summer on their new £100million yacht, the Lionheart, they leave in their wake a trail of woe which has destroyed the lives of 11,000 workers at BHS and left 21,000 members of the collapsed company's pension scheme facing a shattered retirement. ...read

This time next week, the final curtain will quietly go down on a campaign to promote the virtues of financial protection insurance. No, not nasty payment protection insurance that rarely paid out, but income replacement cover that provides a regular income in the event of serious illness. An insurance that amazingly isn't riddled with exclusions and surprisingly meets more than 90 per cent of claims (miracles, it seems, do occasionally happen in the world of insurance). ...read

The French justice system is more sclerotic and quixotic than our own, which is why it may have been unfair to have blocked the appointment of Christine Lagarde to a second five-year term as managing director of the IMF in February 2015. But Lagarde should not remain in her post, as the guardian of the integrity of the global monetary and banking system, now that prosecution over her role in the Credit Lyonnais scandal looks inevitable. ...read

Here is a lesson for Mike Ashley from Henry Ford, for the case against the work practices at Sports Direct, is not just a legal, moral and human one. It is also an economic one. If this dreadful Sports Direct tale has any happy outcome it will be to push service industry companies to follow manufacturers' example and acknowledge it is in their economic self-interest to deal more decently with their people. ...read

How extraordinarily hospitable it was for Downing Street to welcome Masayoshi Son of Softbank to Downing Street on the day it publicly unveiled its £24bn offer for ARM Holdings. But how much better it would have been if someone close to our elected politicians had done a little more due diligence first. ...read

As our new Pensions Minister, Richard Harrington MP replaces Baroness (Ros) Altmann, who quit last Friday. Sadly, the contrast between the two could not be greater. Before her appointment 14 months ago, Baroness Altmann had earned her stripes as a campaigner who fought for decades for a better deal for savers. By contrast, Mr Harrington's voting record shows just a passing acquaintance with retirement matters. ...read

ARM chairman Stuart Chambers is no stranger to Japanese companies taking advantage of the strong yen to launch bid for British companies. In 2006 he was chief executive of Pilkington when it was sold to Nippon Sheet Glass for £1.8bn in a deal negotiated by the 'man who sold Britain' Sir Nigel Rudd. ...read

ARM is the nearest we have in the UK to an Apple, an Intel, a Microsoft or a Facebook. Indeed, it is the only company we have that is in that great global premier league. And now, it is to be sold. The new owner will probably be Japan's Softbank. It has made what it intends to be shut-out bid, but maybe some other foreign buyer will be prepared to pay more. ...read

It wasn't to be - despite promptings from Bank of England Governor Mark Carney. Yet don't think for one moment that the lot of savers is going to be a comfortable one in the months ahead. Far from it. Although a cut in Base Rate may have been avoided this time around, it will happen at some stage - maybe as early as next month, especially if the economy is ailing in response to the uncertainty caused by Brexit. ...read

While there's plenty of debate as to whether a cut below 0.5% will actually have much effect, the theory behind doing so is explained in an obscure but very interesting paper put out by the Bank of England two years ago. Called Money creation in the modern economy, it reveals the magician's trick - providing an explanation of how banks create money ...read

That is an observation for Philip Hammond. Gordon Brown was the extreme example of the phenomenon, but George Osborne experienced a similar transition, in his case from prudent competence to his 5:2 diet. As he has wittily explained, this meant that: 'after two out of every five Budgets, I eat some of my own words'. And Mr Hammond? Well, he will have to handle national finances through a once-in-a-generation upheaval, but he has a once-in-eternity opportunity. ...read

Mind you, some of our home-grown business people are pretty adept at stripping cash out of companies and shafting the pensioners, so this is by no means purely a foreign vice. The task will be to create a regulatory regime that protects British interests, promotes good governance, and rewards innovation and enterprise. That will be a difficult balance to strike. But Brexit makes it even more important that we get this right. ...read

The outlook was supposed to be one of unrelenting gloom, with 'an immediate and profound economic shock creating instability and uncertainty ...' as the Treasury's pre-Brexit analysis paper put it in May. It got one bit right, for under its "shock scenario" it expected the pound to fall by 12 per cent. It was down that much against the dollar, through a bit less on the trade-weighted index, and it is barely recovering now. ...read

A bit of a relief. Or at least that was the reaction of the financial markets to the news that the UK would soon have a new Prime Minster and that she would be Theresa May. Shares, which had already been reasonably solid, moved higher. The pound, which had been distinctly wobbly, jumped a cent against the dollar. ...read

Action is needed on a truly national and strategic scale. Major investment in our infrastructure is one such action. Measures to encourage business investment would help, but few can act with the force and immediacy of Government. And distasteful as it will be to some, Government borrowing is the only way this can be achieved. Stephen Crabb, until recently a candidate for the Tory leadership, proposed a £100bn fund to spend on public projects; other senior Government figures including both candidates for PM have indicated that an end to austerity is now in order. ...read

And paradoxically, though the immediate impact of Brexit is that we head further down than we would have done, in the medium term we may well climb up faster. You can never know the counter factual, but the wall of gloom from some commentators about the damage done by Brexit ignores the evidence that much of the world economy was in some trouble, and continental Europe was in big trouble. ...read

New chief executive Steve Rowe may be aiming to achieve better financial results by cutting the regular promotions, some 28 in the parallel quarter to July last year, but it isn't doing much for sales. Even if one takes into account the litany of usual excuses ranging from the wrong kind of weather to economic uncertainty and Brexit, a fall of 8.9 per cent sales at M&S; (which I hold) must be regarded as cataclysmic. ...read

Connoisseurs of financial meltdowns made in Britain will know they often have begun in the commercial real estate market dating back to the fringe banking crisis of the mid-1970s, through John Major's recession in the early 1990s and the financial crisis during which property fell like a stone. ...read

There's only one man who can try to fill the political vacuum he created, and that's the Prime Minister, the one who got us into this mess by calling the referendum. David Cameron should call an emergency EU special session with his top European peers, such as Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande and others, for an old-fashioned handshake and photoshoot in one of the EU capitals, if not here in London. Corny maybe, but symbolic. ...read

No top level banker has paid the price for a dishonest manipulation of free markets but those further down the food chain gradually are being vacuumed up by the justice system. The most difficult to understand aspect of the Libor scandal is that everyone from the deputy governor of the Bank of England downwards seems to have known that it was an imperfect market, run by a bunch of incompetents that was only too easy to manipulate. ...read

The real effects of Britain's historic Brexit vote will take years to play out. But the likely path of our financial fortunes is becoming clearer by the day. Campaigners for Brexit argued that the UK Treasury would be better off because we would make no contributions to the EU budget. They chose to blithely ignore the warnings from experts that the damage to the economy would be such that any gains from lower EU contributions would be wiped out as the economy slowed and tax receipts fell. ...read

Some business investment decisions may have been postponed in the run up to the referendum but it is worth noting that as the vote approached the economy was gathering momentum. The latest survey of UK manufacturing (the Purchasing Managers Index) rose from 50.4 per cent in May to 52.1 per cent in June, which in normal circumstances would be considered a healthy gain. ...read

Carney believes that given the current uncertainty reflected on the currency markets, where the pound has fallen by over 8 per cent, conditions will likely worsen. The Bank has taken preventative action to ensure financial stability. It created a special £250bn credit facility and a promise to provide the financial system with emergency funds over the next couple of months, so the pipes through which lending to consumers and businesses flow do not need the Cillit Bang treatment. ...read

If things do settle down now, this will have been a middle-ranking shock. It will be more like the time when the pound was kicked out of the European exchange rate mechanism in 1992 than the meltdown of the great financial crisis in 2008-9. But if calm is returning, it will be an uneasy, ill-tempered, sulky calm. The latent dislike of Britain on the Continent has been very evident in political circles over the past few days. ...read

The result of families being fed a diet of scare-mongering for weeks is that some pressed the panic button when they woke to the surprise referendum result on Friday. Most of the hysteria - and I've witnessed it in pubs, supermarkets and at bus stops from Remain voters - is based on rotten lies and half-truths. ...read

British business came under intense pressure from Downing Street to be onside during the referendum. It was only the bravest of FTSE100 chief executives who refused to be drawn into politics. In the final days of the campaign the BBC featured on their main bulletins the chief executive of Rolls-Royce Warren East, the nation's proudest engineering group, speaking out in favour of Remain. ...read

In a BBC interview he has revealed he was appalled by a 'dispiriting campaign'. He argues that the Treasury damaged itself by making exaggerated forecasts which led people to believe some certainty could be attached to them. Moreover, as we now know, the so-called emergency budget was a chimera. As King, one of the UK's most distinguished economic thinkers, notes, he was 'baffled' by the emergency budget idea because to raise taxes and cut spending in the short term, when you don't know what is going to happen in the longer term, would be plain daft. ...read

The idea that Britain can conjure trade deals with the rest of the world that will offset the uncertainty now unleashed was always wishful thinking. But those trade deals must now be pursued. The idea that the rest of Europe would allow us to continue to trade with them as if nothing had happened was a triumph of optimism over likelihood. ...read

The choice has been made. We must accept it. That's the easy bit. Deciding what to do next is much harder, writes former Labour Chancellor ALISTAIR DARLING. But there is no point in asking the Brexit campaigners. For four months they quite deliberately concealed the difficult choices we now face. And now they look as bemused at victory as everyone else. ...read

The more we learn about Dominic Chappell and Retail Acquisitions the more astonishing it becomes that he and his firm were ever deemed fit to be the principal owner of BHS, a stores group with responsibility for 164 shops, 11,000 people and a pension fund with a whopping great hole. ...read

Among the great scare narratives about Brexit is that the pound is exceptionally vulnerable to a destabilising run because the current account, the sum total of all our transactions with the rest of the world, is in such a sorry state. The argument runs that if Britain does vote 'leave' today then sterling could be down the drain. ...read

Sir Philip Green has taken a beating over his abandonment of BHS's retirement funds despite a pledge, so far unfulfilled, to come up with a deal. The BHS chief has rightly taken heavy flak for selling to a three-times bankrupt without securing the pensions promise to those who have given a lifetime of service. ...read

We should not be too surprised by the rally in the pound, FTSE 100 and overseas bonds markets as the latest polls show 'Remain' edging back into winning territory. We should never forget, however, that over the medium to long term a lower value for sterling is helpful to UK exporters and at a time of weak commodity prices does not represent a threat of imported inflation. ...read

With all eyes on the International Monetary Fund's final inspection report on the UK, a second report on the economies of the eurozone likely will get much less attention. Yet it may be the strongest hand that 'Leave' has yet to play. Suffice it to say the paper on the eurozone is hugely damming. ...read

By Sir Philip Green's own erratic standards his marathon six hour session before the joint Business and Pensions Select Committee of the Commons were a model of self-restraint. Not an expletive crossed his lips although more sensitive souls than politicians might have been offended by some of the strange barbs to committee members about being mind-readers and staring at him. ...read

As someone who runs a privately owned retail empire the Topshop and former BHS proprietor largely operates in the shadows away from the public gaze. Such financial, commercial and fashion information that is released is strictly on his terms or has to be gleaned from a complex web of accounts lodged at Companies House. ...read

BT chairman Mike Rake looks to have forgotten that the future of telecoms and media is global and overreaches by telling the group's 81,400 employees that 'Remain' is best. The former CBI president would do better letting the workforce know that the company's prospects depend on keeping and expanding its offer to 8m broadband customers. At present service it is not reliable. ...read

In late 2013, I described the plight of West Brom's buy-to-let borrowers as David versus Goliath - and said I hoped David would win. He has triumphed - quite magnificently. As for West Bromwich, chief executive Jonathan Westhoff should either fall on his sword or return the £150,000 performance pay he received in the last financial year. ...read

George Soros is back and he is a bird of ill omen. The billionaire financier who famously bet against the pound during the ERM crisis in 1992 is now betting heavily against - well everything. Soros is buying gold, the classic bet to take against inflation, falling currencies and all-round market volatility. While he is not infallible, his intervention demonstrates the scale of the uncertainty financial markets and the economy now face. ...read

Green is likely to argue all proper precautions were taken in selling BHS to serial bankrupt Dominic Chappell, including obtaining the best legal and financial advice. ...read

A. C. writes: Thank you, Tony. In 2008 you published my letter about Mutual Benefits Corporation. Since then I have been in contact with the Financial Ombudsman Service and the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, which has finally agreed that I lost £55,126. The FSCS maximum payout in such cases is £50,000 and I have now received this. I am sure your article backed up my case and I am truly grateful. At the age of 78, cheques like this are very rare. ...read

The trade deficit shrunk in April to £3.3bn, well below the consensus of forecast of £3.7bn. The exciting thing about trade in April was that goods exports increased at climbed by 9.1 per cent the fastest rate since 2010. It would be easy to argue that April was an aberration. However, the three month deficit also shows a drop from £13.2bn to £11.1bn. ...read

I suspect there will be many of our readers who see an article about how to get money back and dismiss this as another example of a 'compensation culture'. However, we believe that the mis-sold bank accounts problem is no such thing and a genuine issue that needs tackling. We think the best way to stop a PPI-style cottage industry growing up around claims is to encourage people to complain and get their money back themselves. ...read

Three times bankrupt 'businessman' Dominic Chappell and Sir Philip Green have been luxuriating on their yachts while 11,000 BHS workers are losing their livelihood (with the taxpayer picking up part of the redundancy bill) and some 21,000 members of the pension fund are facing severe cuts in their retirement income. ...read

The publicity shy deputy-chairman and founder of Sport Direct Mike Ashley is virtually an unknown figure to the public aside from the snatched photographs in the stands at Newcastle United. He has been a silent, sullen presence at annual general meetings, avoids direct dealings with the press and analysts and deploys an old fashioned publicity agent - who demands email questions in writing - before responding to queries. ...read

What do the following companies and institutions all have in common? Ted Baker, Fifa, former buy-to-let lender Bradford & Bingley, collapsed bank HBOS and the rescued Co-op Bank. ...read

The blame game will now heat up. I do not wish to pre-empt the many probes now set to take place from MPs' committees to the Serious Fraud Office, but I am afraid it does not look like anyone is going to come out of this looking good. Various business people who have owned or managed BHS all have a case to answer. ...read

The buy-to-let stamp duty hike that arrived with a bang caught plenty of eyes, but it is the forthcoming cut to mortgage interest tax relief that will hurt many existing investors. The question now is whether with costs and regulations increasing, do you take the money on the table now, or hold on and hope you don't get caught by another tax hike? ...read

The death of BHS is a calamitous blow not just to the company's 11,000 workers and contractors but its 21,000 pension fund members, its suppliers and the whole of Britain's retail sector. With some 46,000 shops currently empty across the country Britain is in danger of moving from being a nation of shopkeepers to a nation of high street undertakers. ...read

It may well be, as the meteorological start of summer and for the advisers collecting fat fees, but there is nothing else about the proposed LSE-DB deal worthy of such hyperbole. ...read

Of all the cynical Brexit scare stories pumped out by politicians over the past few months, the attempt to terrify pensioners must rank among the most questionable. The European Union has been absolutely disastrous for British pensions. Its meddling has trashed payout rates on so-called annuities, which provide an income for life to millions, and allowed insurers to profit (see page 34). ...read

Even in Italy's prosperous north they seem to understand the Brexit referendum better than the political leaders of the Remain camp. David Cameron and George Osborne largely have focused on the economy, the likelihood of recession, falling living standards and many other perils should we leave. ...read

Millions of us are not saving enough for our retirement despite every government for the past 20 years introducing laws which they argue will make pension saving more attractive. But what is as critical as making saving an appealing pastime is giving people confidence that the cash they save for their pensions is safe and promises made when they signed up are kept. ...read

Millions of people with final salary pension schemes had better steel themselves. Plans are afoot that could seriously damage their retirement incomes. To help find a willing buyer for British steelmaker Tata, the Government is considering altering the law to let trustees of its pension scheme switch from making annual pension increases based on the Retail Prices Index to the less generous Consumer Prices Index. ...read

Finding ways of rescuing Tata Steel, keeping the steelworks operating and the 15,000 jobs, is the right thing to do. But not at any cost. ...read

Pay off your mortgage as soon as you can. That tip has stood for years as a cornerstone of financial wisdom. The idea was that while you might have traditionally taken out a 25-year mortgage, the wise thing to do was overpay and get it cleared as soon as possible. But this is coming under attack from lenders and low rates, so is it still wise? ...read

Rowe wants to cherish and celebrate Mrs M&S; and provide her with 'wearable, contemporary and unbeatable wardrobe essentials' which are well-fitted, good value and are not high fashion. I think most of us have been suggesting this for years; he only has to look at competitor Uniqlo to see what he should be doing more of and better. It sounds pretty basic but most Mrs M&Ss; I know want somewhere where they can find classic good quality wool sweaters, shirts or basic T-shirts in every colour and style; whatever age. Men too. ...read

A huge part of me wants to see so-called peer-to-peer investing blossom into a towering success. I love the idea behind this new-fangled way of saving. You cut out the big banks and get more bang for your buck - as a saver and as a borrower - because there are no fat cats creaming off huge chunks of interest for themselves. But I'm afraid that I simply can't give peer-to-peer investing a ringing endorsement. ...read

Herbert Hainer was the mastermind behind the massive £750m Adidas 10-year contract with the Old Trafford side last year and is best buddies with Jose Mourinho. Hainer let slip in an interview with a German paper in January this year after United finally beat Swansea after eight games without a win, that the team's style of play under Louis van Gaal was not 'what we want to see'. ...read

From the numbers it would seem abundantly clear to me that a big chunk of people who wanted to either get into buy-to-let, or snap up another one, pulled forward purchases. Not only are these buy-to-let investors now going to be missing from the rest of the year's property market, but investing has got less attractive for others too, so what next for the market? ...read

Most financial firms seem to take the view that the ends justify the means: if you're rapacious and profits pile up, so be it. Over the past few days it's become clearer than ever that the FCA and CMA stand by while firms get away with murder. I'm sad to report that these bodies show all the hallmarks of being utterly toothless. ...read

This is Money is launching a new regular series called 'a coffee with...' where we will chat to some of the most colourful bosses and financial commentators in the personal finance sphere. As part of the launch, consumer affairs editor Lee Boyce speaks to AO.com founder John Roberts. ...read

The first decade of this century saw record activity for inward investment in Britain through foreign takeovers. A limited number, such as Tata's purchase of Jaguar Land Rover, have been roaring successes, but others have been negative if not ruinous. Selling off privatised utilities has been particularly vexatious. What we are discovering is that in several cases the buyers bought on borrowing, overpaid and are now strapped for cash. The regiments of future retirees and pensions should not be forced to pick up the bill for a grotesque mistake. ...read

Equitable is still in a strong enough position to pay a 35 per cent 'capital distribution' to with-profits policyholders - a top-up to a policy's value that is only paid when they move their money out of the mutual. Yet this distribution is not guaranteed. With continued downward pressure on interest rates, there is a possibility that it could be cut, Brexit or no Brexit. Equitable said as much in its recent missive to policyholders. ...read

It is enough to make you want to leave the country, not just the EU. The Prime Minister thinks Brexit could lead us into another war. The governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, warns of a danger of a 'technical recession' and potential difficulty in funding the nation's capital account (that is, all our dealings with the rest of the world). ...read

If you do want to build your own share portfolio - or just understand how people do it - how do you go about it? We asked our friends at Stockopedia to build a buy-and-hold DIY investing Isa share portfolio - and explain how it was done. ...read

The confidence of Deutsche Boerse chief executive Carsten Kengeter that the proposed £21bn 'merger of equals' with the London Stock Exchange will gain all the necessary regulatory approvals is breath-taking. Among the reasons that Deutsche Boerse initially sought a deal with the LSE was to escape the attentions of American interloper the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) which particularly wanted control of the Eurex clearing house owned by DB. ...read

My latest spot is an estate agent window in Streatham, South London. It is a fairly unfashionable area, best described as up-and-coming. Yet prices for a decent two-bedroom flat - nothing fancy - appear to start at around £500,000. We all know house prices in London are bonkers, so what's new? ...read

The rise of peer-to-peer lending, crowd funding and challenger banks has been hailed as one of the few bits of positive fallout from the financial crisis. ...read

Does Sir Philip Green have a point? He said he is 'horrified' that Labour MP Frank Field, chairman of the Work and Pensions Committee, has said he would recommend stripping him of his knighthood if the retail tycoon did not stump up £571million to close the deficit on the BHS pension scheme. Green calls Field 'clearly prejudiced', accuses him of prejudging the issue, and said he should step down from the committee at once. Field said he won't be bullied. ...read

For the past couple of years, the arrival of the International Monetary Fund inspection team has been the cause for hosannas and some barely disguised schadenfreude from the Treasury. This time around it is rather different. The forward-looking data for manufacturing, construction and now the services sector suggests that the UK economy stalled in April. ...read

There is no doubt that pension issues will dominate the personal finance landscape over the remainder of this year and beyond. And the investment funds industry and the charges it heaps on investors will be put under the microscope in the months ahead. ...read

Grocery has not been much fun in an era of sinking commodity prices and competition from the no-frills retailers. Against this background J Sainsbury has done comparatively well hanging onto market share when others have given it up. Indeed, even though profits fell in the last financial year, it still did better than its bigger competitors, leading chief executive Mike Coupe to claim it is the 'Leicester City' of supermarkets. ...read

A sure sign that insurers are flogging a dead horse is their use of famous, trusted faces such as Sir Michael and others. It lends an amount of credibility to the ruse - and it's time these wealthy celebrities realised the harm they cause. ...read

The least one might have expected from a putative chief executive of a 'merger of equals' of Deutsche Boerse and the London Stock Exchange is an understanding of the rules governing takeovers in the City of London. Former UBS banker Carsten Kengeter, who heads Deutsche Boerse, could do with a primer on how the Takeover Panel, the City referee, works. ...read

What I find most perplexing about this whole episode is the failure of some of the most experienced and highly paid advisers in the City to warn Green about Chappell or to put obstacles in the way of an obviously unsound financier. It is the failure of these watchdogs to bark and protect 11,000 workers, 21,000 pensioners, countless creditors, suppliers and others, that is incomprehensible. ...read

One of the oddest aspects of the referendum campaign is how it has turned the Chancellor from cheerleader for Britain's economic renaissance into gloomster. ...read

The risk is reputational damage which potentially could cause a loss of trust in the better parts of the enterprise and raise character questions. Former BHS owner Sir Philip Green is clearly concerned by the latter. He is facing an inquisition from the Commons Work and Pensions Committee, headed by Frank Field - an MP not known for his gentle views. ...read

In recent weeks, we have revealed how the banking giants charge up to six times more to renew a home insurance policy than if you were to buy a new one. We've also warned how savers who were sold pensions in the Eighties and Nineties are having their retirement funds whittled away by greedy insurers' excessive charges. ...read

One of the great untold stories of the referendum campaign is the appalling state of the euroland economy. It was an underlying theme at this month's IMF meetings in Washington. The Fund's financial stability report drew attention to the €900bn (£700bn) of non-performing (a posh name for rotten) loans on the books of Europe's banks. ...read

Mutuals are meant to exist for the benefit of their members (customers). So, it's a little surprising to see NFU Mutual chief executive Lindsay Sinclair enjoying a 16 per cent increase in his overall remuneration for the financial year 2015, according to accounts released on Friday. Sinclair enjoyed a financial package worth £1,753,149, compared to £1,508,418 in 2014 with more than £1million being paid for meeting various short and long-term performance targets. ...read

When is state aid acceptable? The answer seems to depend not on any point of principle, but on the particular prejudices of who you ask. Is the Government right to offer to take a 25 per cent stake in Tata Steel to help save jobs? Should the French government be allowed to help fund EDF to build nuclear power plants in the UK? Should farmers anywhere get subsidies from the EU? ...read

Would you buy a brand new home? About 150,000 households did so last year - and the suggestion is that we need to almost double that - but I couldn't see myself joining them. Like many, the real reason why I wouldn't want to buy a new home is because I don't believe they are built big enough. Give us the chance to build our own and that would improve. ...read

I spent last weekend frantically decorating my spare room ahead of the delivery of a new bed on Monday. Sadly - and frustratingly - things didn't to go to plan. Half the frame was missing from the delivery and I was told I'd have to wait 10 days for the rest. That got sorted, but I wonder if everyone would have benefitted. ...read

In the past year the UK has created half a million jobs, roughly half of which have been taken by foreigners and half by Brits. It is an astounding achievement, marred a little by the fact that productivity of our workforce is relatively low and real wages have been creeping up only slowly. ...read

Most of us have been lured into paying gas and electricity bills by direct debit. Typically, there is a 7 per cent discount if you allow the company to lift money directly from your bank account. Suppliers love how this creates a dependable flow of money into their coffers and their call centre staff can get quite pushy about you paying this way. ...read

Of course, Metro Bank is not THE answer to all our banking needs. But you have to admire a business that is bucking the trend and investing in people, bricks and mortar. A business in growth mode rather than retrenching. ...read

The sunny uplands of £1 a litre for unleaded are already behind us. More dollars per barrel will help BP's bottom line next year and may make next year's numbers look a bit better. But that prospect should not allow BP or Dudley, or indeed other board members who agreed his 20 per cent pay rise, to forget their recent humiliation. ...read

Despite issuing £53billion of fines - some of the proceeds admittedly going to good causes - regulators have done little to change the hard-sell culture of the banks. Rather than stopping the banks in their tracks, they have allowed them to commit one misselling scandal after another. Only after the damage has been done have they moved in their tanks and hit them with fines. ...read

Spring has sprung and fear is down. Or at least that seems to be the big message not just from share prices but also from the fall in the 'fear index'. That is the popular name for the VIX, the volatility index traded on the Chicago Board Options Exchange, which tracks the volatility of US share option prices on the S&P; 500 index. ...read

Chief executives can't be in it just for the money, or at least most of them can't. It is status, acclaim, the position in society, the sense that people respect you. ...read

Brexit has elevated itself into the top issue at the Spring financial meetings despite a host of other critical issues ranging from the Panama papers to refugees and the meltdown in commodities. World Bank president Jim Yong King invoked the importance of regional integration in Europe as a reason for Britain staying inside the EU but at least had the sense to say Brexit was for the British people to vote on. ...read

Even by the standards of Britain's increasingly muddled taxes, inheritance tax is a mess. So it should perhaps come as little surprise that the Prime Minister managed to find himself lambasted for doing nothing wrong this week. So what do we do about an unpopular and complicated tax? ...read

The way David Cameron has been dragged through the mud for inheriting money from his parents is damaging for us all. The PM has done nothing wrong in accepting a £200k gift from his mother. Yes, it's a hefty sum of money. But the inheritance tax laws are quite simple. If someone gives money to a relative or friend and dies within seven years, it's liable to tax. ...read

The shop has massive marker pen signs saying 'STOCK LIQUIDATION' and ALL STOCK MUST GO'. I assumed it was shutting down - but it's not. I can only imagine therefore that Sports Direct means 'all stock must go' in the traditional sense that that is the conventional aim of a retailer. But the cynic in me thinks I can't have been the only one tempted to go have a look for a bargain item thinking that the store was shutting down. ...read

It's been five years in the making, but the wait is over: Britain has a new state pension. It marks the biggest change in a generation to the way this country looks after older people. When it was announced in 2011, the new state pension was sold as a bigger, fairer payment. It would be made 'fit for the 21st century', ministers boasted. All you needed was 35 years of National Insurance contributions - not too onerous for someone who started work in their 20s - and an inflation-linked £155 a week awaited you in retirement. Sadly, the devil is lurking in the detail. ...read

Former BT customers must pay £5 a month to keep their email address active. There is a way round it though, says BT - signing up to BT again! Effectively saying we'll rip you off unless you come back to us doesn't sound to me like a great way to win back customers. ...read

What would happen if financial markets went through another bout of extreme turbulence of the kind which disrupted the global economy in the first two months of this year? Things could get very bloody. The International Monetary Fund's experts on financial stability fear if this happened it could provoke a prolonged slowdown, tipping the world into economic stagnation. ...read

When the Fund last met in the Peruvian capital Lima in October 2015, policymakers feared that Fund economists were overdoing despair and were in danger of talking the world into another recession. ...read

It isn't just Opec countries who will gather in the Qatar capital. It is all the world's big oil producers , including Iran, which is not increasing production, and Russia, where production is at a 30-year high. The only important producers who will not be there are the US and Canada - we won't, but such is the decline in North Sea production that the UK is no longer a globally important producer. ...read

Barclays' trial to allow Amazon to use its outlets as click and collect locations is a sign of the ever encroaching online empire but may also provide a new revenue stream for the branches. Bank branches were in fact among the first to suffer from new technology. First telephone and then internet banking have meant fewer and fewer people ever need to set foot in one. ...read

JES Staley is a chief executive in a hurry as he seeks to simplify the Barclays model and restore a languishing share price. The Barclays boss believes the lender can still be a world beating global bank by focusing on the key financial centres of London and New York. ...read

The biggest manifestation of the backlash is the change in the rules governing shifting of tax domicile which has brought the $160bn (£113bn) Pfizer-Allergen deal to a screeching halt. British-born Pfizer boss Ian Read overdosed on the Viagra of deals and has retreated from proposed takeover of AstraZeneca and now Allergen in quick succession. ...read

The Financial Reporting Council, keepers of the governance flame, make much of the fact that Britain leads the way when it comes to curbing excess and poor stewardship in the boardrooms. None of this counts for very much when over-powerful executives and compliant pay committees play havoc with the rules. ...read

Steve Rowe says he intends to talk to, and listen to, customers a lot. But that is the kind of boiler plate we hear from all incoming bosses whether they are running banks, shops, or telecoms companies. But it rarely makes any difference. What will be far more important is Rowe's determination to bring the same kind of speed and innovation to fashion that he has brought to food. ...read

The British Government can decide not to intervene and allow Port Talbot to close. It might even be able to argue that EU rules stop it doing anything else, though other EU countries including Belgium and Italy have aided their steel industries and decided to fight the bureaucrats after the event. But British politicians cannot argue that Port Talbot must be allowed to close because it is the 'free-market' thing to do. ...read

With UK interest rates zero-bound the cost to the authorities of loan guarantees or direct loans, to be paid back when health returns to the global steel industry, would be extraordinarily cheap. The Government's feeble response to the crisis at Tata Steel is in marked contrast to the smarter way that its Labour predecessors dealt with past catastrophes facing Britain's strategic industries. ...read

One of the big flaws of the Brexit campaign so far has been the failure of its leaders to give any detailed information about what the UK might look like if they are victorious. It's a serious weakness for the Out campaign, and explains why the Remain camp's Project Fear scaremongering over lost jobs and trade drying up appears so convincing. ...read

If there is another financial crash, the Queen can't ask the economists why nobody saw it coming. The warnings are coming thick and fast: only a few weeks ago Lord King, the former governor of the Bank of England, warned in his book The End Of Alchemy that the world was heading for another financial crash far worse than the last one unless we reformed the banks. ...read

Among the weakest of the arguments deployed by the 'remain' campaign is to suggest that if Britain were outside the comfort zone of the EU inward investment would freeze over, we would be cut off to global commerce and UK plc would postpone corporate investment. ...read

After bingeing on debt in the early 2000s, Premier Foods has been fighting a long battle for survival ever since. It managed to escape the big drop into the Blue Square Conference and receivership by jettisoning brands and bringing debts down from £1.7billion at the peak to a not inconsiderable £600m now. ...read

Carsten Kengeter the pre-ordained chief executive of the £21bn 'merger of equals' between Deutsche Boerse and the London Stock Exchange doesn't seem to have a great way with words. Judging from reported comments to staff at the German exchange's Frankfurt headquarters the deal was 'God's will.' ...read

But despite all this, business should be very pleased with the majority of policies unveiled last week - particularly small companies. At long last the Chancellor delivered dramatic changes to the business rates system that will help hundreds of thousands of small companies which have been slaving under an onerous and outdated local tax system. ...read

The long goodbye for Sir Andrew Witty - he intends to step down from GlaxoSmithKline this time next year - does not come as an enormous surprise. The writing has been on the wall since the quietly effective Sir Philip Hampton, lately of RBS, was chosen as chairman in 2014. ...read

Of all the moments in the year to unveil the £21bn-plus 'merger' of Europe's two biggest stock exchanges - London and Frankfurt - what better time than the day of the March Budget. This is a lesson straight out of the WPP and Barclays guidebook for burying unpleasant realities. At least WPP had the good grace to unveil Sir Martin Sorrell's £63m package the night before the Budget. ...read

There is much not to like in Deutsche Boerse's backdoor effort to take over the London Stock Exchange. The regulators are not that keen either which is among the reasons that investment bankers and lawyers are still revising a 'merger' document expected some days ago. ...read

The cases of Hinkley Point nuclear power plant and the Drax coal and wood burning plant between them demonstrate the extraordinary mess we are in. It is not a mess uniquely created by our current Government, nor the Coalition which preceded it. Instead, it is the result of several decades of short-term politically driven policies and often public posturing by politicians of all stripes. ...read

It reflects a change in the national mood as recovery has gained traction and jobs created. Citizens have become less cautious and more willing to spend at a moment when returns are so poor. ...read

Given the level of drama around the Brexit debate recently with interventions by Mark Carney, John Longworth and according to some reports the Queen we might have expected sterling to be in freefall. ...read

Mark Carney's Brexit appearance before the Treasury Select Committee was a high voltage affair with the Eurosceptic tendency fearful that the Bank of England has been taken over by a gang of traitors. The idea that the Bank is in some way acting on the bidding of the Downing Street machine must be discounted. Nevertheless, the Canadian governor does appear to have a more benign view of the EU and eurozone than his two immediate predecessors. ...read

So far there are no signs of George Soros doing a 'big short' on sterling as in 1992 when he took a $10bn (£7bn) bet against the pound and secured a profit of $2bn (£1.4bn) for himself and his investors. As with any major event the Brexit vote is likely to cause market disturbances. Over the last three months sterling has put in its worst performance since the financial crisis seven years ago when it lost nearly a quarter of its value against a basket of currencies. ...read

Transparency drives change, so it is important that the same principle applies to social mobility.That is why we have decided to become one of the largest employers in the UK to publish our social mobility data, says David Sproul. ...read

This is not about letting these businesses escape from paying their way - many do not pay much if any corporation tax to start with. It is about releasing the management of these firms from a red tape exercise that lumbers them with a burden far out of proportion to its value to the Exchequer. ...read

'It's an election year, and candidates can't stop speaking about our country's problems (which, of course, only they can solve),' wrote Buffett. His response was an ode to our good fortune that is about as far as you can get from the 'I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore' posturing of populist politics. ...read

New Schroders chief executive Peter Harrison really needs to run the show in his own image without his predecessor stalking the executive floor and keeping clients sweet. Bankers usually receive the 'fat cat' epithet in the City but, as we can see from Dobson, it applies to senior executives in fund management too. ...read

In his final column as the newspaper's Money Mail editor, James Coney reveals why he believes it is readers who hold the key to keeping our financial giants and authorities in check. He says: 'It is your willingness to share experiences, and the intimate details of your finances, that help us to launch such powerful campaigns and to hold companies and the Government accountable for their decisions.' ...read

Bradley Singer of ValueAct Capital controls 10.8 per cent of the shares at aerospace champion Rolls-Royce so current board members have little choice but to welcome him to the fold. ...read

So entrenched has the accepted wisdom become among money markets, investors and currency traders that EU membership is essential to the UK's economic health, that it doesn't matter whether it is actually true or not. The risks are too great for political and emotional prerogatives to get in the way of economic and financial realities. ...read

Glencore's shares have climbed more than 45 per cent and Barclays have plunged by around one-third along with other weak banks. The 2015 figures from the Swiss-based mining and trading giant do not make for pretty reading, after it turned in a £3.5billion loss. ...read

Small businesses and individuals are flocking to the crowd to get projects or enterprises funded. But now big banks, funds and pension companies are trying to get involved. It it all about to get too corporate and scare off the crowd. ...read

On April 6 - 35 days' time - it will be one year since George Osborne introduced a new 'pension freedom' regime. Though some experts believed these new freedoms would trigger a spending spree as people plundered their pensions, it hasn't quite happened that way. A combination of factors - tax, a fragile economy and consumer prudence - has kept the pension pillaging to a minimum. ...read

The seemingly bold suggestion of house prices doubling in 15 years would actually mean them growing well below the long-term average, but even then it may not happen. As a value investor, I look at the chart of house prices compared to wages and see property as expensive and therefore less likely to perform well from here. ...read

The pace of change on the High Street is startling. Amazon has been looking for an entrance into the British grocery market for some time. Now it has it through an alliance with Morrisons. Amazon has shown an ability to disrupt traditional markets and make them its own through superior logistics and robotics. ...read

Alex Brummer, the Daily Mail's City Editor, made an eloquent case in these pages for how the City would survive if we left the EU. But he understated how much our financial services industry would be damaged and overstated the amount of regulation we'd jettison. ...read

You had to wonder why BT made such a public fuss about maintaining its control of Openreach network. Its defensiveness left the impression the telecoms giant has something to hide. Now we know. The report by Ofcom makes it clear that for all the special pleading and claims of billions of pounds of investment its stewardship has neither been fair to competitors nor helpful in ensuring Britain has the quality and speed of broadband required for a digital economy. ...read

Enthusiasm for the great all singing and dancing merger of the London Stock Exchange by Frankfurt's Deutsche Boerse looks be rapidly vanishing. Aside from the fact that it is an ill thought alliance, the political and regulatory barriers look like Everest. ...read

Over the last two decades the LSE has come under siege from Deutsche Boerse, Sweden's OM, Australia's Macquarie, the US's Nasdaq market and Canada's TMX. In each case the deals were repulsed. The great hero of all this was Dame Clara Furse who amid the bidding tumult of the first years of this decade showed remarkable forbearance in keeping the LSE intact. ...read

Cash, they would have us believe, is on its way out. Over the past ten years there's been a monumental shift in the way we use money. First came Chip and Pin, then online shopping and most recently tap-to-pay contactless cards that let you zip in and out of coffee shops, pubs and newsagents. ...read

No one should be too surprised that the fast moving EU events of the last couple of days have sparked a new bout of volatility for the pound. The enthusiasm with which Boris Johnson, a chunk of the Cabinet and an increasing number of Tory MPs have embraced the Brexit cause was bound to bring on a bout of the collywobbles. ...read

Now I can't make a silk purse of this sow's ear, but I think the real significance of these figures and the better sales performance of its rivals is yet to be clear. I will be reserving judgment until we see the profit effect on Asda of this sales slump - due, of course, to the fierce competition from the discounters like Aldi and Lidl. The newcomers are more directly targeted at Asda customers than the other supermarkets - Asda has always placed itself as the shop for the price-conscious grocery buyer. ...read

The premiums have simply become unaffordable. According to Which?, a healthy 35-year-old living in the Midlands can now expect to pay anything between £681 and £883 in annual premiums for a 'comprehensive policy' from one of the four big providers - Bupa, Axa, Aviva and VitalityHealth. For a 65-year-old, the premiums jump to between £1,722 and £2,497. Big numbers at a time when austerity rules. ...read

The decision for HSBC to stay in the UK was announced this week as if it were a marvellous coup for the Government and as if the bank were doing us all an enormous favour. Maybe this is a Machiavellian interpretation, but I wonder whether HSBC's mooted move was all a bit of a fig leaf for easing off on the banks in general. ...read

As the owner of British Gas, with some 16million customer accounts, Centrica will always command a great deal of attention. This is particularly true in a period when the wholesale prices of gas have come down by 34 per cent and bills by 14 per cent after three successive cuts. Explaining all of this has been a constant conundrum for Centrica. Current chief executive Iain Conn deserves some credit for taking on the issue head-on. Sure market prices have come down but he argues some 60 per cent of gas bills are made up by pipeline, transportation and the green costs which the government imposes on the big six energy firms. ...read

The faint possibility that somehow the power of the OPEC oil producers has been restored, after reaching a deal with Russia and talking to Iran, was enough to send crude prices up 7 per cent in latest trading and inspire a rally in share prices after a miserable start to the year. Before anyone becomes over-excited by the prospect of a return to some kind of normality in highly volatile markets it is worth looking at some of the fundamentals. ...read

In 2008, after deciding to pump taxpayers money into failing British banks, Brown tried to persuade Angela Merkel, Nicolas Sarkozy and others to do the same. They sent him away with a flea in his ear saying that the eurozone had no need to respond to what was a financial and banking crisis born in New York and London. How wrong that judgement proved to be. ...read

We should play to our strengths - our small-and-medium-sized businesses, the SMEs. As Nassim Taleeb coined it in 'The Black Swan', an SME economy is an 'anti-fragile' economy. We must give these companies the support and access to finance they need to innovate, grow and employ - for only they can drive the recovery. ...read

Energy groups are in the firing line once more over customers' bills and, as we report this week, British Gas is likely to face brickbats when it announces a leap in earnings from ordinary householders. All of this in the face of falling prices for gas in the wholesale markets. Its parent company Centrica will undoubtedly argue that it faces burdens elsewhere. ...read

Customers should be able to update their cover to embrace better terms offered to new customers, paying slightly more for the privilege. It's such a common sense initiative it should be embraced straightaway. But then we are talking insurers, a breed renowned for not putting customers at the centre of their universe. So don't expect a letter promising to refresh your policy any time soon. ...read

In any sane world private car use would have been taxed into the niche luxury bracket decades ago, the road network would have remained pretty much as it was in 1960. Money would have been poured instead into trains, buses, trams and other mass transit options, as well as a cycling infrastructure. In its current filthy, dangerous, street-clogging, life-degrading, resource-hungry incarnation the car's days would surely be numbered: if it is cleaned up and made less dangerous then it could be here to stay. ...read

Central bankers clambered from the rubble of the Great Panic of 2008 adamant that the global economy should never be caught out so badly again. Much time and effort has gone into making safe the banks at the heart of that tumultuous period and installing new early-warning systems so policymakers can avert disaster and prevent contagion spreading throughout the financial system. ...read

Mark, soon to be Lord Price, will become the sixth incumbent in seven years when he swaps Waitrose for the robes of office in April. For his predecessor, Lord Maude, it was barely worth joining a frequent-flier programme. What Price will learn when he digs into the figures is that the razzmatazz of ministerial trade missions has not proved effective at loosening the purse strings of overseas buyers. ...read

When a perfectly competent borrower is rejected for a mortgage - and just happens to be aged 70 - I am instantly suspicious. Susan Bailey had a faultless payment record on her interest-only mortgage, owned a property outright in Spain and had a stable pension from her career as a school teacher. So why, last month, did Santander refuse a deal so she could keep her home for just two more years? ...read

John Cryan, the British banker appointed last summer to revive Deutsche Bank, talks a lot of sense. Not so long ago when the jobs axe was swinging, he conceded that many in his profession still got paid far too much for what they did. The trouble is, Cryan's protestations that Deutsche is a picture of financial health are falling on deaf ears. The last decade has taught investors that cries of "don't panic" often indicate they should do precisely the opposite. ...read

For the first time, and after decades of delays and dead ends, there is now a deliverable alternative to the UK's air capacity question, says Stewart Wingate. The Government delayed its decision on expansion in December, showing once again that Heathrow is still dogged by the environmental problems that have stalled its plans time and again over the past four decades. ...read

When the Bank of England keeps interest rates frozen again today, we will be just one month off the seventh anniversary of 0.5% Bank Rate. You'd be forgiven for feeling that it's all gone a bit Groundhog Day as the latest Super Thursday arrives with little hope they will rise. ...read

How can Google, Lloyds, Shell and others be allowed to rake in billions from British customers without contributing to the schools, hospitals, roads and services their staff use here? Yet, as a blind eye is turned to these outlaws, the tax authorities are busily attacking the middle-class way of life. ...read

One criticism of George Osborne last year was that too little changed in the UK economy to merit three set-piece financial statements. Given how much the tectonic plates have shifted since he stood up in the House of Commons on November 25, that charge is no longer applicable as the Budget hoves into view on March 16. ...read

Do markets know something we don't, despite evidence suggesting the recovery in Britain and other developed economies was broadly on track? The big question being asked is whether the market moves are signalling bad news coming down the track for the real economy, says Stephanie Flanders. ...read

The topic of auto-enrolment may seem soporific, but right now it is keeping tens of thousands of bosses awake at night. Small company bosses are having to tackle a pensions minefield for their staff too as they are required this year to set up pensions for their employees. One director at a small family firm I spoke to last week is utterly exasperated. ...read

Goldman Sachs' forecast that Brexit could send the pound plummeting by 15 per cent to 20 per cent should be taken with a pinch of salt. ...read

Mr Tyrie, who chairs the Treasury Select Committee, is like a dog with a bone - in a good way - as accounting regulator the Financial Reporting Council is now discovering. Those who had shares in HBOS owe him and his fellow committee members a particular debt of gratitude for their dogged pursuit of the truth behind the collapse of the High Street lender. ...read

Do you know what the eighth wonder of the world is? According to Einstein it's compounding, and specifically compound interest. But while investors will have been told this regularly, there are some common mistakes they make on compounding, says Nutmeg boss Nick Hungerford. ...read

There are certainly good reasons for Syngenta investors to be pleased by this £30bn shakedown by the Chinese. The promise to keep Syngenta whole should keep the gnomes of Basel, where it is located, happy and ease the anxieties of employees that might be worried about synergies and cost cutting. The deal also shows that despite the Chinese growth stall and the outflows of capital in recent times, Beijing is still willing to spend big overseas for valuable technology. ...read

Last week, it emerged that the top executives at these six energy giants - British Gas, EDF, Eon, npower, ScottishPower and SSE - earned between themselves £12 million in 2015. ...read

After a brief rally on hopes that the Opec oil cartel and Russia are about to cobble together a deal on cutting production, crude was back in retreat in latest trading. It fell 5 per cent to $30-a-barrel on Tuesday, a level at which it would be tricky for BP to keep paying its current dividend and at which the recent £36billion Shell takeover of BG Group ceases to make economic sense. ...read

BT may be celebrating robust growth numbers, propelling the shares temporarily through the £5-barrier, but there is no escaping the fact that is the beneficiary of a regulatory cock-up. It has been allowed by the toothless UK Competition & Markets Authority (CMA) to spend £12.5bn on buying mobile operator EE gifting it 25m mobile subscribers on top of its permanent annuity in fixed lines. ...read

The tax system for multinationals was created in the 1930s for a very different type of corporation: one that had a physical presence, employed armies of people and sold actual goods. Now the authorities are trying to tax virtual corporations, carrying out virtual business, against competition from nations such as China that are not bogged down by legacy technology, and in a global financial system without borders, where capital is highly and rapidly mobile. ...read

It does no harm to know that the authorities stand ready to throw the book at City traders and bankers who in search of an edge and higher rewards are willing to cheat clients. The regulators reassuringly have not given up on chasing down the bankers, including former chief executives James Crosby and Andy Hornby, who brought HBOS to its knees leading to the loss of tens of thousands of jobs and depriving investors in HBOS and Lloyds of their savings. ...read

HSBC is racking up the rate on its Premier credit card from 11.9 to 16.9 per cent. HSBC says the increase is due to new legislation 'which make our current offer unsustainable'. I presume it is referring to the new cap on the fee that card issuers can levy on retailers for processing payments (the so-called interchange fee). ...read

Taxpayer and investors can only by frustrated that the authors of this banking disaster have paid no price for their hubris, reckless behaviour and lies. The 2015 results will be the first since Sir Howard Davies took the helm from Sir Philip Hampton now at Glaxo. ...read

Andrew Bailey, the incoming chief of the Financial Conduct Authority, has a mountain to climb. We do not need a regulator to 'look hard'. We need a regulator who really knows where the flaws and the dangers in the banking system lie and what can be done to cure them. I venture to say that Bailey is our best hope. Of course, the first time he lets us down we will let him know loud and clear. ...read

A heavy-hitting London banker recently suggested to me that the best thing the Chancellor could do if he wanted to fix the discredited Financial Conduct Authority was to bring it under the control of Andrew Bailey at the Bank of England. That is effectively happening. Bailey will be shipping out to Financial Conduct Authority headquarters at Canary Wharf and must step down as deputy governor. ...read

Pharmaceuticals is one of the few areas where Britain's competitive edge in global markets is well established and GSK and AstraZeneca are flagships for British based R&D.; They have also become significant investors in bio-tech ensuring the UK has a foothold in new medical breakthroughs. ...read

I know some taxpayers have been frustrated by their dealings with HMRC in the past. That's why we're investing £1.3bn to make it one of the best tax administrators in the world. The shift to digital tax accounts for our great British businesses is a key part of that. While we will always ensure that those who really can't file digitally are protected and helped, it is time for the vast majority to take the opportunities that will come from leaving behind our onerous paper-based tax system, and enjoy the savings in time and money that technology offers in so many other areas of their lives. ...read

The sum of money is paltry given the many years in which Google paid little or no tax in the UK thanks to entirely legal but aggressive tax avoidance measures. It is hard to believe that HM Revenue & Customs and Google itself will not face criticism for this settlement from tax campaigners and politicians. Crucially, they must reveal exactly how they came up with this number. Is it based on some kind of calculation - or is it just a finger in the air designed to pacify public opinion? ...read

The Financial Reporting Council (FRC), is so sclerotic that most of the firms and people that it probes have retired or expired by the time it delivers a verdict. And the Financial Conduct Authority is in danger of becoming FSA squared with its supine response to Whitehall cajoling and an obsession with internal leak inquiries. ...read

The art of milking customers has been skilfully demonstrated by our TV and telecoms giants. What I need to do is call up and threaten to leave unless I get a much better deal. However, the problem is that when I sit down to compare the packages different providers offer, the industry's confusion pricing nudges me into giving up before I can complete the task. Fortunately, time appears to have been called on their confusion pricing. ...read

One move by the Bank of England which irked savers last year was reducing the FSCS limit by £10k to £75k - now, with the pound weakening, are we now under-protected? I crunch the numbers and look back historically with interesting results. ...read

The big game changer for oil has been the return of the United States as a big energy producer. Much of the shale oil and gas is the result of drilling by smaller producers, rather than the giants such as Exxon and Shell with their more mature assets around the globe. These secondary drillers, refiners, transporters and engineers are weighed down with debt. The fear is that low oil prices will trigger a series of defaults and this will send shockwaves across the whole financial system. ...read

More than 2.5million switchers have taken advantage of the ability to move bank accounts in seven-days, figures revealed today. But more should consider a bank account healthcheck and switching banks to save and make money, urges Anne Pieckielon, of the Current Account Switch Service. ...read

HSBC's latest bit of wizardry is an app that spies on customers' and sends them an alert if they spend too much in Tesco or at the pub. This is all far too 'nanny state' for my liking. We want safe access to our money; protection from fraud; staff in branches. Surely, we'd rather better banking and less gimmicks. ...read