News

As the countdown to Christmas begins, PwC has found that more than half (56 per cent) of 100 high street retailers were holding sales or advertising promotions in their shop window, such as '3 for 2' deals. This is up 10 percentage points on the same time last year and in 2013 (46 per cent), and clo

The Council of Mortgage Lenders and consumer watchdog Which? are today launching a new "tariff of mortgage charges" that will introduce a standard format for how lenders communicate their fees, to make it easier for customers to understand charges and compare deals.

Alliance Trust has ramped up purchases of its shares, spending over £26 million last week in a determined bid to lower their discount. The Dundee-based global fund has spent £26.4 million on buying back its shares in what looks like an increasingly active bid to reduce their discount to net asset

The number of business in Scotland may have risen to a record high but the majority of this growth has been in one man operations with the number of medium to large firms either static or having risen by a small percentage, according to analysis of the latest statistics by accountants BDO. The numbe

New research from Aberdeen Asset Management has revealed the integral part that governance plays in the investments asset managers make and what clients expect of them. Nearly 90 per cent (89 per cent) of financial services decision-makers considered effective governance to be a critical driver of i

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

The House of Lords has called on the Prime Minister to halt the Scotland Bill amid fears the process is being undertaken with “undue haste” and without an assessment of the political and economic consequences for the UK. In its report A fracturing Union? The Economic Affairs Committee said there

Work to build a £10 million whisky distillery in Hawick will begin next year after The Three Stills Company (TTSC) announced that it has secured the necessary £10 million funding needed to redevelop the empty Turnbull and Scott premises. It will be the first facility of its type in the Borders for

Royal Bank of Scotland has said it is scrapping sales bonuses for staff working at the 73 per cent taxpayer-owned lender’s retail banks. To compensate, the roughly 20,000 staff selling products such mortgages, credit cards and loans to individuals and businesses will get an average 5 per cent pay

Hometrack’s UK Cities House Price Index has recorded annual house price growth of 9.4 per cent per annum, and looks set to reach 10 per cent by the year end. Glasgow (up 8.3 per cent), Manchester (up 7 per cent) and Liverpool (up 5.1 per cent) are registering the highest rates of annual house pric

New figures obtained by Written Parliamentary Question have revealed that, since since its inception six months ago, the Scottish Business Pledge has welcomed 151 businesses with a total of 38,000 employees. The pledge was announced by First Minister Nicola Sturgeon in her first Programme for Govern

Motorists in Glasgow have paid more fines this year in traffic offences caught on CCTV than in any other council area in the UK BBC Newsreports. Glasgow City Council has raised £4 million this year – 11 per cent of the UK total.

Three drinks industry veterans have bought Scottish Borders-based craft brewer Broughton Ales. John Hunt, Steve McCarney and David McGowan purchased the business for an undisclosed sum from majority shareholder Giles Litchfield.

Martin Gilbert Martin Gilbert, Aberdeen Asset Management’s founder and chief executive, has spoken publicly about the asset manager’s need to remain independent as he quashed recent speculation that he was gearing-up for a sell-off.

Andy Hornby The long-awaited PRA/FCA report into the failure of HBOS has suggested that up to 10 former executives of the lender that had to be bailed out by the UK taxpayer at a cost of £25 billion at the height of the financial crisis should be banned from working in the City.