Search: financial focus

Scottish chartered accountancy practice Wylie & Bisset has called for an extension to the business rates relief holiday in response to the extension of coronavirus lockdown measures until at least mid February. Mainland Scotland was placed into lockdown on January 4 to tackle the rising spread o

National Savings & Investments (NS&I), which operates premium bonds and other savings products, has apologised to customers for its poor service after admitting that it took an average of 20 minutes to answer the phone in the autumn of last year. NS&I said it had been severely impac

As mainland Scotland entered the third coronavirus lockdown under national guidelines, the housing market braced itself for another slowdown following attempts to catch up due to the four-month shut down which commenced in March 2020. To restart the housing market, encourage vendors to increase thei

The UK's public sector net borrowing is estimated to have reached £34.1 billion in December 2020, £28.2bn more than in December 2019, which is both the highest December borrowing and the third-highest borrowing in any month since monthly records began in 1993.

Independent accountancy and business advisory firm Johnston Carmichael has strengthened its restructuring team with the progression of Graeme Bain to an appointment-taking director. Mr Bain, a licensed insolvency practitioner, joined Johnston Carmichael as a director in 2017, can now be appointed to

Paul Denton, the head Scottish Building Society (SBS) has welcomed a dramatic rise in house prices - but warned the impact of COVID-19 could prove a barrier to a generation of buyers getting on to the housing ladder. Yesterday's House Price Index released by the Land Registry and the Office for Nati

Two-fifths of business owners in Scotland say they’re worried about their mental health, according to a survey of 1200 entrepreneurs conducted by the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB). More than half of the respondents (55%) to the poll said that they had concerns about the survival of thei

Consumer price inflation rose slightly more than expected to 0.6% in December from a three-month low of 0.3% in November, according to the latest figures released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

Aberdeenshire Council has appointed its head of finance Alan Wood to the interim position of director of infrastructure services. Mr Wood takes up the role with immediate effect following the retirement of Stephen Archer in December.

The office market in Edinburgh remained robust in 2020 despite the upheaval of COVID-19, according to the latest figures on the office markets in Edinburgh and Glasgow released by CBRE. Over the final quarter of 2020, office take-up in Edinburgh totalled 103,444 sq ft, which is only a 2.46% decrease

The UK Government has launched new legal action against eight former directors of failed contractor Carillion which could see them banned from running businesses for up to 15 years.

Edinburgh-based cryptocurrency startup Zumo has welcomed more than 10,000 new UK users to its app in December following a drive to reach new users. The success of the campaign, which included a referral incentive scheme, bears witness to growing interest in cryptocurrencies as a more secure and smar

Bank of Scotland owner Lloyds Banking Group has unveiled the next stage of its plan to boost Scotland’s fintech workforce in the fastest-growing digital economy outside London. As part of the launch of its new tech hub in Edinburgh in March 2019, Lloyds announced a recruitment drive to create

A strong final quarter of 2020 saw shares in Scottish companies outperform the wider FTSE and AIM All Share indices, with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic creating clear winners and losers from the crisis, according to analysis from Brewin Dolphin. The wealth manager found that Scottish organisa

Finance secretary Kate Forbes is urging the UK Government to release £21.3 billion of reserves to help tackle the impact of coronavirus. She has written to Chancellor Rishi Sunak asking that the Scottish Government be given its share of the funds now. This would total around £1.7bn if th