Search: financial focus

Edinburgh-based insurance giant Standard Life, which owns 1 per cent of HSBC, has said it would back a move by the lender, which is Britain’s biggest bank, to relocate out of the country. Standard’s head of equities David Cumming said shareholders would back HSBC if it decided to move its headqu

Tessa Till Tessa Till is a private client partner at Pagan Osborne's Edinburgh office.

Fergus Ewing Small to medium enterprises (SMEs) in Scotland are being urged to put resource efficiency at the top of their agendas with a supporting loan of up to £100,000.

George Clarke The potential value of Scotland’s empty homes is more than £4 billion, according to the organisation tasked with bringing them back into use.

A Scottish government scheme designed to help people with debt has seen more than £100m repaid to creditors. Since being overhauled four years ago, a total of just over £112m has been repaid through the Debt Arrangement Scheme (DAS) since July 2011, according to new figures.

Sarah Speirs The latest RICS UK Residential Market Survey has determined that Scottish house prices expected to rise by 4.2 per cent per annum, over the next five years (a cumulative increase of around 25 per cent).

The Scottish Housing Regulator has stressed the key role of auditors in Registered Social Landlords risk management and compliance with regulatory standards. Speaking at the SFHA’s Finance Conference in Crieff Ian Brennan, the Regulator’s director of finance & risk, said: “Internal auditor

A finance director who took almost £8m from businesses owned by Scottish entrepreneur and TV personality Duncan Bannatyne has been jailed. Christopher Watson, who claimed he was exposed to a “culture of undoubtedly corrupt company management”, pleaded guilty to defrauding the Bannatyne Group of

John Kay A former economic adviser to the Scottish Government has claimed that Edinburgh will never recover from the trauma of the 2008 banking crisis and branded the damage done to the city’s banking sector a “tragedy”.

Calum Bennie Staff turnover at Scottish Friendly has come in for scrutiny following a series of high-profile departures at the finance firm.

A Scottish stock market trader is facing fraud charges in the US over allegations that he created fake tweets to mislead the market. US authorities claim the bogus tweets were intended to manipulate the stock prices of two companies.

The ‘bank of mum and dad’ has become an increasingly vital resource for today’s generation of first-time homebuyers, but it seems the once informal family agreements are now being drawn-up with strict legal constraints. According to lawyers, the benevolence of some parents starts and stops wit

Gail Clarke Gail Clarke is director of rural land and business, at Blackadders

The Moray Council needs to “significantly increase” the pace of change and improvement if it is to build on the progress made over the last two years, according to the Accounts Commission. A report published by the watchdog today looks at developments since a 2013 audit on how the council was me

Wages in the construction industry have risen at a faster rate than any other sector over the past 12 months, according to fresh analysis of the latest data. In the last year, average pay in the building trade shot up by 5.1 per cent, the examination of labour market statistics compiled by the Offic