The coronavirus pandemic has worsened a longstanding late payment problem for British businesses, according to The Institute of Directors (IoD). The institute has called for 'more firepower' the UK's small business commissioner Philip King to help address the issue.
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The Scottish private sector remained in a downturn during the final month of 2020, according to the latest Royal Bank of Scotland PMI, with a further drop in services activity outweighing a strong improvement in manufacturing growth. The seasonally adjusted headline Royal Bank of Scotland Business A
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has issued a warning to consumers about the risks of investments advertising high returns based on cryptoassets. The FCA has said it is aware that some firms are offering investments in cryptoassets, or lending or investments linked to cryptoassets, that promise
A Stalin-themed kebab shop in Moscow has been liquidated by Russian officials after being open for less than a week. Staff at the Stal’in Doner wore uniforms of the NKVD, the forerunner to the KGB while customers were greeted with the Stalin-era slogan: “Life has become better, life has
Finance leaders expect a return to growth in 2021 with optimism rising to a record high, according to Deloitte’s latest CFO survey. Despite the surge in business optimism, half of CFOs do not expect demand for their own businesses to recover to pre-pandemic levels until the last quarter of 202
The UK Government should push back the self-assessment tax deadline of January 31 to help small businesses across the country, Glasgow-based accountancy firm MCC Accountants has said. MCC Accountants argued that firms needed more breathing space after a chaotic year, and that that extending the dead
FRP Advisory, the liquidators of Patisserie Valerie, has launched a £200 million legal claim against the cake chain's auditor Grant Thornton. Patisserie Valerie went into administration in January 2019 following the emergence of an accounting scandal.
Competition for investment is set to intensify after the London Stock Exchange (LSE) closed last year with a flourish of activity, which is predicted to continue in 2021, according to EY’s latest market tracker IPO Eye. After a subdued first half in 2020, in Q3 we saw the re-emergence of IPO a
The UK Government has announced a new £10 million fund to help the UK's whisky distilleries go green by switching to low carbon fuels such as hydrogen. Eleven distilleries across Scotland and a further six in England will be able to kick-start green innovations thanks to the government backing
According to the Credit Services Association (CSA), UK taxpayers could recover £6 billion in repayments from emergency COVID-19 loans if the government uses debt collection firms to work with borrowers over several years.
In the fourth quarter of 2020, the average property selling price in Edinburgh, the Lothians, Fife and the Borders was £269,542, up 8.1% compared to last year, according to the latest data released by ESPC.
UK banks lent twice as much to small and medium-sized businesses in the first three quarters of 2020 as in the whole of 2019 with gross lending to SMEs reaching £54 billion between January and September. According to UK Finance, over 1.5 million businesses have drawn on government-backed
The number of permanent staff appointments across Scotland continued to decline in December, according to the latest Royal Bank of Scotland Report on Jobs, although the downturn eased noticeably on the month. Meanwhile, temp billings rose markedly again, amid the quickest increase in demand for shor
Well-known forestry specialists have this week launched the GOLDCREST Land & Forestry Group - a new business based in Edinburgh. Surveyors Jon Lambert, Fenning Welstead and Jock Galbraith, who previously worked for John Clegg & Co, have formed a new partnership operating throughout the UK.
Year on year Scottish shopper footfall decreased by 50.2% in December, a 18.9 percentage point increase from November, according to the latest Shoppertrak data released by the Scottish Retail Consortium (SRC).