News

The scorching summer heatwave and the World Cup bonanza as England reached the semi-finals spurred people to spend excessive amounts on food, drink and electric fans in July. This led to a peak in food sales, having their best July in five years.

In a survey carried out among retailers by the British Retailer Consortium (BRC), it was seen that food sales were up by 4.5%, while non-food sales declined by 1.2%.

The Bank of England has increased interest rates in the UK from 0.5% to 0.75%. This is only the second time in the decade this has been done.

The Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee voted unanimously to raise borrowing costs despite concerns over Brexit hurting the economy, arguing that to keep inflation on target a modest increase was needed.

British Petroleum (BP) has agreed to buy BHP Billiton’s US shale assets for $10.5 billion, in their biggest acquisition in nearly two decades.

Bob Dudley, BP’s chief executive, acclaimed the deal as “a transformational acquisition.”

A rise in new cases has been seen by the enforcement decisions committee of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in the last financial year. This is said to have been driven by an increasing number of firms failing to file their returns or pay fees.

The FCA’s annual reports and accounts, published last week, saw the Regulatory Decisions Committee (RDC) open 508 new cases for the financial year 2017/18, compared to 445 cases in 2016/17.

Google is set to be fined by the European Commission (EC) after they claimed that the US tech giant’s mobile device strategy unfairly strengthened its dominance of search.

The fine could be up to 10% of the annual revenue made by the group, which amounts $11.1 billion (£8.5 billion). Additionally, they may be forced to unbundle their Android from Chrome and other Google services.

John Flint, Cheif Executive of HSBC has stated that in the event of a no deal Brexit, whereby the UK will exit the European Union (EU) without a deal for the financial services industry, the bank has a contingency plan.

Lloyds Banking Group reported a 23% increase in their profits over the first half of the year, despite taking a £550 million hit to cover claims from mis-sold payment protection insurance (PPI).

Their recorded pre-tax profits rose to £3.1 billion in the six months to 30 June, based on higher interest income and lower costs.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), UK’s financial watchdog, has proposed a minimum interest rate for older cash savings accounts because the market does not seem to be working well for the longstanding customers.

They have stated that customers who have been with their banks for a long time and do not switch are usually worse off. Rather they often receive lower interest rates on easy access cash savings products compared to newer customers.

The government has recorded a slightly bigger than expected budget deficit in June, even though borrowing over the first three months of the financial year was seen as being the lowest since 2007.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) reported in June the budget deficit stood at £5.394 billion, which was better than compared to over a year ago where it was £6.239 billion.