Lazy monolinguals will hurt your business: The compelling case for bringing language learning into the workplace February 28, 2017 The UK’S future relationship with Europe is far from certain. With many of Brexit’s economic consequences still panning out, it is a good time to reflect on how the UK can maintain a global trading edge after its exit from the EU. In this respect, post-Brexit UK companies would do well to embrace foreign languages [...]
Political risk is about more than populist election victories, as UK insurers know February 28, 2017 As the anti-globalisation stone gathers moss, political risk has been weighing on the minds of investors. Many worry that the tide of public opinion in the developed world is flowing towards tougher immigration restrictions and higher tariffs on imported goods, scrambling any chances of energising this feeble and joyless economic recovery. In the last week, [...]
Human Rights Issues and Your Portfolio February 28, 2017 | City Talk We would rather not think about human rights issues when it comes to asset allocation. In the developed world, we often treat human rights violations — modern-day slavery, child labour, etc. — as anachronisms, at least as far they concern us. Or we dismiss them as problems for someone else to deal with, whether activists, [...]
Out-Trumping Trump: How one company is getting more towers than Donald Trump February 28, 2017 Want to have as many tower blocks named after you as Donald Trump without having to build any of them? Forbes, the American business magazine publisher, has come up with a plan. The privately-owned company added property to its other three strategic pillars of print and digital media and branding back in 2013, with a plan to [...]
FTSE firms should publish a breakdown of their workforce by race and pay band, says government-backed review February 28, 2017 Large employers should publish a breakdown of their workforce by race and pay band, according to a new government-backed review. The report by Conservative peer Baroness McGregor-Smith found that if black and minority ethnic (BME) people progressed in the workplace at the same rate as their white counterparts, the UK economy could be boosted by £24bn. She [...]
Older workers prepare to work until 70 years of age February 28, 2017 Older workers are preparing to work until 70 years of age, according to a poll by the Chartered Institute of Professional Development (CIPD). The survey polled 1,600 UK employees and showed that a third (37 per cent) of all workers believe they will have to work past the widely accepted retirement age of 65, a [...]
Probate fees set to rise by almost 100 times for big estates February 27, 2017 Probate fees are set to rocket for many homeowners, after the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) replaced a flat fee with a rate which will be up to 129 times bigger for some estates. The current fee of £155 for a solicitor to apply for probate will rise to £20,000 for estates larger than £2m. The [...]
Blockchain for banks is a “long way off” says influential central banker February 27, 2017 Blockchain fintech has a “long way to go” to satisfy financial regulators, according to an influential board member of the European Central Bank (ECB). Benoit Coeure said the underlying distributed ledger technology could pose new risks to the financial system, including legal and operational obstacles. Coeure said: “Distributed technology could become a game-changer for payment, [...]
The Bank of England has admitted to a Michael Fish moment – but economists have plenty to learn from weather forecasters February 27, 2017 So British economists are like the nation's most notorious weatherman when it comes to Brexit? That's what the Bank of England (BoE) has reasserted before the Commons Treasury Select Committee. The nation's number crunchers, said BoE chief economist Andy Haldane, mostly thought Britain's economy would crumble and growth would go into reverse following a Yes vote in last year's EU referendum. [...]
Tandem Bank’s chief executive Ricky Knox talks sarongs, dumb pipes, ornithology and why Facebook is scared of banking February 27, 2017 "Would you have called Amazon? I didn’t! We all thought that was just a fad – it was a bookseller. An online bookseller with that valuation? But the internet creates these giants – and it’s not just one or two of them. "Look at music – EMI is basically dead. Google – a little bulls*** [...]
