Exclusive: The pandemic showed the limitations of an online-only model, says retail guru November 17, 2021 A year of enforced change in buying habits where pretty much everything went online has reverted to ‘the new normal’. The Covid pandemic accelerated the shift to online; but is the future of retail really digital only? While in the short to medium term, there will remain some concerns over the logistics of browsing and [...]
Amazon confirms it will block UK Visa credit cards from 19 January November 17, 2021 Amazon will stop accepting payments made using Visa Inc credit cards issued in the United Kingdom starting next year.
Millions more Brits in debt as debt pile owed to HMRC balloons to £42bn November 17, 2021 Around 2.4m more taxpayers are in debt to HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) as tax debt is at more than double its pre-pandemic levels, according to a spending watchdog. In fact, tax debt ballooned by £26bn between January 2020 and September of this year. Staffing levels at HMRC are unlikely to be enough to manage [...]
Has the Walkers crisp shortage left customers salty? November 17, 2021 Walkers hasn’t had the best couple of weeks. On October 28, it was widely reported that the Leicester-based snack brand was running out of crisps – and on November 11 its factory caught fire (thankfully, nobody was hurt). But has the recent potato paucity had any knock-on effects on Walkers’ brand? Data from YouGov BrandIndex [...]
Bear Grylls, Robbie Williams and Holly Willoughby join consumer guru Martin Lewis in fight against scam adverts November 17, 2021 Prime Minister Boris Johnson is urged this morning to include paid scam adverts in the upcoming Online Safety Bill. The call comes from a range of celebrities, including Robbie Williams (pictured above), Bear Grylls and Holly Willoughby, who have signed a joint letter led by Martin Lewis. The consumer guru has long campaigned against bogus [...]
Revealed: Amazon to open 260 supermarkets across UK as it plots to take on Tesco and Sainsbury’s directly November 17, 2021 Amazon has developed detailed plans to storm the UK supermarket sector as the e-commerce is planning to open hundreds of cashierless grocery stores across the country in the next three years. More than 260 Amazon-owned and run supermarkets are to be launched before the end of 2024, namely 60 in 2022, another 100 per year [...]
Post-Brexit payments space is ‘breeding ground for financial crime as Wild West culture’ looms, warns rising City star November 16, 2021 After the UK left the European Union, a range of payment providers reported so-called IBAN discrimination as a number of companies across Europe began to refuse Euro account bank details if they contained the country code ‘GB’. As a result of Brexit, sending a payment to Eurozone countries resulted in additional charges. Whilst the fee is [...]
‘It’s a pivotal time’ November 16, 2021 | Sponsored Interview with Simon Kenyon, Group Ambassador for London, Lloyds Banking Group Taking the pulse of London’s financial health is not easy: for every business that’s thriving, or at least showing ‘bouncebackability’ from the pandemic, there are others struggling to keep the wolf from the door. But the economic pulse is beating a little faster inside the [...]
£11.05 per hour in London: 300,000 Brits get pay rise following hike in real living wage November 15, 2021 The new hourly Real Living Wage rate will be £11.05 in London and £9.90 outside the capital from today, increases of 20p and 40p respectively, it was announced. As a result, more than 300,000 workers are set to receive a pay rise as higher rates were announced for the Real Living Wage, a voluntary rate [...]
Exclusive: More than half of all UK small businesses rely on credit to pay for insurance November 14, 2021 Nearly six in ten small business across the UK rely on credit to pay for their insurance, borrowing on average around £1,832, according to new research that was exclusively shared with City A.M. this weekend. Some 16 per cent of SMEs claim to be using over £3,000 of credit a year to buy their cover, [...]
