News

Nationwide Building Society has seen a decline of 40% in profits following a late surge in payment protection insurance (PPI) claims and substantial investment in company infrastructure. Nationwide faced charges of £36 million for PPI compensation as a surge of customers claimed for compensati

The SNP has backed interest rate action on credit cards and payday loans. The party has said that the new action would see lower maximum costs on 450,000 payday loans a year.

Retail water supplier Brightwater has appointed former Standard Life Bank employee Carron Henley to its advisory board. Ms Henley will provide guidance and support to the Brightwater’s executive team as it focuses on further growth across the Scottish retail water market.

TSB has announced that it will close 82 branches as part of its new strategy.  The closures will reduce the bank's branch network from 540 to 454.

Chartered accountants Wylie & Bisset is advising contractors and businesses to prepare for the forthcoming IR35 tax legislation change which many commentators predict will have a significant impact on how many businesses operate. Introduced in 2000, IR35 is an anti-tax avoidance rule that applie

The Royal Mint has revealed its newest coin weighing five kilos with a denomination of £5,000.

Serbia's finance minister has been urged to resign after a university revealed that he plagiarised parts of his PhD thesis. Belgrade University, which is arguably Serbia's most prestigious university, issued a statement which said that Sinisa Mali "literally took over texts, or entire paragraphs, fr

Ayrshire-based Lowmac Waste & Recycling is playing a key role in helping Scotland meet its ambitious recycling targets by 2021 with the support of a £1.8 million asset finance package from Bank of Scotland.

Euromillions winner Colin Weir has bought the majority share (55%) of Partick Thistle FC through his Three Black Cats (TBC) company, with the intention of eventually gifting those shares to fans. Mr Weir bought the majority share in the club after he won £161m on the Euromillions. He completed

The Scottish Chambers of Commerce (SCC) has hailed a plan to build a whisky distillery in Inner Mongolia worth more than £3 million to suppliers in Scotland. The deal follows a series of SCC-led events which welcomed business groups from Inner Mongolia to Scotland, under the SCC Network’

Aberdeen Japan Investment Trust has posted positive annual results with a Share Price Total Return of +16.4% and Net Asset Value Total Return of +13.1%, significantly outperforming the Topix Index Total Return of +9.3%. The results have also revealed that since the change in investment objective to

The number of new business launching in West Dunbartonshire has risen in the last year from 202 in 2018 to 207 this year. Business Gateway, operated by West Dunbartonshire Council's business support team, assisted 22.5 startups per 10,000 population – higher than the whole of Scotland average

Social enterprises are a critical part of the rural economy contributing £250 million in the Highlands and Islands and South of Scotland areas, new figures from Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) and South of Scotland Economic Partnership (SoSEP) has revealed. The figures focusing on the i

Techstart Ventures has led a £500,000 funding round of investment into Carbogenics, a University of Edinburgh spin-out that turns difficult-to-recycle paper waste into a carbon product that boosts green energy production. Techstart Ventures is joined in the seed investment round by Old College

A planning application has been submitted for the development of the National Manufacturing Institute Scotland (NMIS) situated at the centre of the Advanced Manufacturing Innovation District Scotland (AMIDS) in Renfrewshire.