The head of Barclays’ head of small business unit Steve Cooper has said that the bank will not be joining any government schemes that set targets for small business lending, in fact they will “refuse”.

Mr Cooper told the Financial Times that he felt any targets implemented would result in a repeat of the irresponsible lending that saw Britain spiral into the current situation.

He added that it may mean banks will start dishing out loans to meet figures rather than on the merits of the application.

The coalition government is currently looking at implementing nationwide business targets for all banks, nothing has been approved as yet but as the government had pledged to increase the cash flow for all small and medium sized businesses it is expected that something will be implemented soon.

Business Secretary Vince Cable has said that the targets could be implemented but with dividends and bonuses used as an incentive for banks in what was described my Dr Cable as a “carrot and stick” approach.

Recent figures suggest that a total of £598m in new loans had been authorised in June, £70m more than in May.

A new business has been launched to try and help smaller business and is called Funding Circle, it acts as an online market place allowing private lenders to offer money directly to smaller companies.

Funding Circle has estimated that typical interest rates charged on the loans will be between 6% and 9%, borrowers will pay the website a £50 fee to register and also 2% of the amount borrowed, but if this happens then the £50 joining fee will be refunded.

Police believed that the corporation was collecting and storing data from internet users that have been using Wi-Fi networks.

Google recently admitted that its ‘Street View’ cars had been collecting information from unencrypted Wi-Fi networks but later called this a “mistake".

Despite this the North American based company faces legal investigations in a number of countries to see if it did indeed break any privacy or data protection laws as a result of the street view cars.

A spokesperson for the Korean National Police Agency (KNPA) said:

"[We] have been investigating Google Korea on suspicion of unauthorised collection and storage of data on unspecified Internet users from Wi-Fi networks."

The spokesperson also confirmed that the raid was indeed based on the Street View investigation and not a fresh allegation.

Google responded saying:

"We will co-operate with the investigation and answer any questions the police may have."

Whilst investigations in other countries are still ongoing the UK’s Information Commissions Office found that Google had not broken any laws as it had failed to grab “significant” personal details.

A spokesperson for HMRC confirmed this announcement adding that they were ‘disappointed’ with the courts decision but would not be appealing and had no intention of launching further legal action.

The CVA needed an approval rating of 75% from all creditors but received a unanimous vote of 80.3%, HMRC were opposed to the CVA as they felt that it favoured the football creditors over everyone else – meaning that players and other clubs owed money to would receive 100% of monies owed and the rest would need to be divided amongst creditors.

The last football club to be made to pay 100p of every £1 they owed was Middlesbrough FC in 1986, a ruling which has since been changed and now clubs are only expected to pay the 100% back to football related creditors.

Portsmouth FC were the first top tier club in England to go into administration and received a nine point deduction as such. They began a crucial season in the N-Power Championship on Saturday with a 2-0 defeat away to Coventry City.

The government is currently renewing all public service pension schemes in a bid to try and find a way to make them more affordable to the taxpayer. But unions say that cuts made back in 2007 were enough to make the schemes affordable and any more cuts would have huge implications on workers pay.

The review which is being lead by former Labour Pensions Minister is due to report back before Christmas.

The unions have put forward evidence to the panel of investigators taken from the Treasury and National Audit Office showing, they say, that “the civil service pension scheme is both affordable and sustainable in the short, medium and long term.”

Despite the evidence the Coalition government seem set on their views that the pensions are far too expensive to keep in their present from and that they should not be exempt from current cuts that are taking place.

Figures compiled independently suggest that the pension schemes cost as little as 0.3% of the UK’s gross domestic product a figure that they believe will be the same for the next 50 years.

The deal will allow the 100,000 members of the ICAEW to get 3 business packages at a discounted rate.

The institute have said that 3’s innovative proposition won them the contract and hope that this will be the beginning of a long partnership.

3 will now begin a 12 month marketing plan with the ICAEW to promote awareness of the partnership.

Experts also believe that the deal was helped by the mobile phone operators recent dealing with the Orange and T-mobile partnership (Anywhere,Everywhere) which is thought to have given 3 some network bandwidth, leading to more reliability.

The network has also recently created a package for businesses that receive funding from The Prince’s Trust, offering them a 24 month mobile package at a discounted rate and free mobile data. The reason for the venture 3 say is the rewards the company will get from helping the disadvantaged youths the trust works with.

3’s head of sales Paul Foley said:

‘Three Business is uniquely focussed on providing the best possible deals for small businesses, so working with The Prince’s Trust to benefit the young entrepreneurs they support makes sense.’

As looked at in an earlier blog HSBC announced massive profits for the first quarter yesterday and today is the turn of Lloyds.

The bank which is owned by the UK tax payer has logged profits of around £1.6bn which is up massively on the loss of £4bn for the same period last year.

Experts suggest the reason behind this is the dropping rate of funds set aside to cover ‘bad loans’, the amount has gone from 13.4bn of last quarter down to £6.5bn.

A statement released by Lloyds described the announcement as “ a significant milestone for the Lloyds Banking Group,” adding that it was “well positioned” to deliver strong financial over the coming years.

The large majority of losses made by Lloyds was as a result of the HBOS takeover, which it has since been criticised for as many experts feel the group underestimated the extent of bad loans on the HBOS books.

As a result of this the government has to issue a bail out to the bank to the tune of around £20bn.

Lloyds reported earlier in the year that they were on course to make a profit for the first time in over 2 years but declined to give exact details, behind the scenes though the news allowed the company to increase borrowing rates. Making them odds on to hit lending targets this year.

Lloyds boss Eric Daniels added:

We are ahead of our lending commitments, but what we can’t do is prevent our customers from paying back. Our customers are behaving very prudently. Credit is available."

Other reports are due from remaining banks on Thursday and RBS on Friday, which will be the one financial experts will be looking at as Northern Rock have also reported a profit of £350m.

The bank also reported that they were profitable in every other other region in the World except North America where they saw a loss of around $80m.

The rise in profits in the UK is up around 26% from last year and gives other banks who will be releasing their figures later this week a benchmark.

Shareholders in the bank will receive dividends of around $1.4bn, this is on top of the announcement earlier this year.

Other encouraging news is that monies set aside to cover bad loans has fallen to its lowest since the financial crisis began.

Investors hailed the news from the bank as shares went up across the board, Lloyds and RBS both reported a rise of more than 5%.

Despite this many have warned for the bank to make a complete recovery in the US market would depend on the recovery of the US housing market.

Also lending in the UK is still down at £500m a month compared to £900m two years ago.

BP have revealed that they are chasing a tax credit of around $9.7 billion (£6.3bn).

The oil giants who have recently found themselves having to pay out billions as a result of the Gulf of Mexico spill and are now hoping to reclaim some of that amount from the US government.

A income statement from the BP group shows a pre-tax charge of around $32.2bn which is presumably linked to the oil spill and a tax credit of $9.79bn.

According to US law BP can offset a proportion of its losses against US tax but given the current relationships between the two it could make for a frosty reception.

Current estimates on the costs of the disaster amount to around $4,300 per barrel spilt which BP will have to pay, on top of any civil or private payouts they need to make.

A paper published today proposes the two ‘quangos’ which are responsible for the regulating the accounting profession (FRC) and the UK listing authority (FSA).  The Treasury is  looking to reform the financial regulations in the UK. 

The paper released by the government said “the merging of the FRC with the UK’s listing authority would have the benefit of bringing the UKLA’s regulation of primary market activity alongside FRC functions relating to company report, auditing and corporate governance,”

The Treasury paper said:

“The Government believes that, within the proposed new regulatory architecture, there is a strong case for a powerful companies regulator established with responsibilities for regulating corporate governance corporate information and its disclosure, and the stewardship of companies by institutional shareholders.”

The current Business secretary, Vincent Cable would be responsible for the new regulator as it would be part of the department for business.   He express concerns in regards to the “restricted number of big audit firms” and the freedom of the market. 

The document released by the treasury is titled:  A New Approach to Financial Regulation.   It calls for enormous change to financial regulations.  It criticises the current system in saying:

“Perhaps the obvious failing of the UK system, however, is the fact that no single institution has the responsibility, authority or power to monitor the system as a whole, identify potentially destabilising trends and respond to them with concerted action.”

 

The consulting paper advocated the creation of a Financial Policy Committee (FPC) and be part of the Bank of England to supervise financial stability of the UK.  The FPC would have a Prudential Regulatory Authority (PRA) and  an Independent Consumer Protection and Market Authority (CPMA). 

Source:  Accountancy Age

Accountancy firm Upton & Co have been told they must pay back over £4 million to investors after it was discovered they have been running unauthorised schemes.

The firm were running a program know as a ‘collective currency scheme’, this allowed investors to pool monies and invest in foreign exchange markets. However the FSA claimed that limited trading actually occurred meaning little cash was returned to investors.

Margaret Cole, Director of Enforcement and Financial Crime said:

"Operating a collective investment scheme is a serious business involving the management of a number of investments and requiring FSA authorisation.”

Adding:

"Upton had no business running one of these schemes and the firm risked millions of pounds of investors’ money – something you’d expect a firm of accountants to know better.”

Upton & Co started as in Wakefield 11 Years ago and offer business consultation alongside accountancy services, saying it prides itself on “delivering an unparalleled service to all clients, whatever their size or sector.”

The High Court also ordered Upton & Co to pay a further £840,000 in monthly instalments of £10,000.