Entrepreneurs’ relief: A tax break unravels? March 11, 2020 Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s first Budget beckons, and business founders will be looking out for one announcement in particular: will he scrap entrepreneurs’ relief? The controversial tax break enables people who start their own successful businesses to pay less capital gains tax when they eventually sell it on. It was originally intended to encourage people to [...]
Government set to scrap entrepreneurs’ relief in £2.7bn tax grab March 1, 2020 Plans have been drawn up by the Treasury to hit businesses with a £2.7bn tax rise in this month’s budget. Chancellor Rishi Sunak is set to scrap entrepreneurs’ relief, which gives a capital gains tax cut to people who start their own businesses. The scheme cuts the amount of capital gains tax paid, when they [...]
HSBC signs global deal with City fintech startup Bud December 11, 2019 HSBC is to ramp up its efforts on Open Banking, following a global partnership agreement signed today with London fintech startup Bud. The banking giant took a significant stake in Bud earlier this year, after the startup helped HSBC launch mobile banking app Artha through its First Direct challenger brand. The deal will initially see [...]
Property of the Week: Interior designer Elspeth Lynn sells her home in Bayswater that’s an homage to Gatsby glamour January 11, 2019 For some people, making a house a home is fun, but for others it’s a chore. Especially – as is the case in many of central London’s most desirable postcodes – if it’s not even your main residence. If you don’t have time for a fixer upper, simply buy an interior designer’s flat. As luck [...]
Forget Big Ben, the real rows are ahead January 17, 2020 One of the more ludicrous stories of the week concerns the efforts of a small band of pro-Brexit MPs to get the bells of Big Ben ringing out our departure from the EU at 11pm on 31 January. Parliamentary authorities have done their best to shut down the scheme, saying it would be too expensive [...]
Investment research review plots a positive path forward July 20, 2023 Lord Holmes details an expert review of the state of investment research he believes will open greater opportunities for London.
UK and EU must avoid a ‘punch-up’ over financial services, says incoming BoE governor Bailey February 12, 2020 Britain and the European Union must find a way to settle disagreements over how the UK’s finance industry can do business with the bloc without it descending into a “metaphorical punch-up”, said incoming Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey. Bailey, who is currently head of the Financial Conduct Authority, also said it would be “hard [...]
UK backs facial recognition project that helps Beijing catch masked protesters March 15, 2020 The government has partnered with Beijing to back a project aimed at developing facial recognition technology that can identify people wearing masks. The Home Office and the Metropolitan Police are both involved in a programme that carries out research jointly funded by the Chinese state — despite the country’s reported use of surveillance technology to [...]
Stuffing the House of Lords with your friends is practically a parliamentary tradition August 29, 2019 To consolidate his Brexit position, Boris Johnson is rumoured to be lining up a selection of “Brexit heroes” for elevation to the Lords – a line of eurosceptics in ermine, ready to take to the red benches to shore up his support in the upper house. It is a politically expedient plan, with the Conservatives [...]
HSBC-backed fintech Bud to re-focus product stream after restructuring October 31, 2019 A fintech startup backed by HSBC is to open up its software to businesses outside of banking, as part of a restructuring of the business that included a swathe of lay-offs. Bud, which passes financial data made available through Open Banking legislation to banks in order to help them innovate, will now make its platform [...]