A new deadly computer virus is doing the rounds and this one, which goes by the name of Clampi, is proving to be a headache for literally thousands of on-line banking customers.

The Clampi virus is spreading quickly throughout both the UK and US, and has a particularly invidious way of effecting people’s computers.

The virus, what’s known in the jargon as a Trojan, has been created by hackers intent on stealing people’s personal banking details. It effects people’s computers after they visit certain websites and then sits quietly waiting its chance. Then, once the computer users accesses their personal banking website, it activates, and captures such vital information as login and password details.

Once harnessed, these details are then sent back to the waiting hackers, who using them to commit on-line fraud scams.

The Clampi virus courts some 5,000 financial websites; ones which include British and American banks, but also mortgage lenders, on-line shopping sites, casinos and email service providers.

And although the Clampi virus has been around since 2005, only now is it really beginning to make its presence felt. In the US for example, thousands of dollars of fraudulent transactions are already being blamed on the Trojan.

Computer security experts are warning that the Clampi virus represents a complex threat and one which people should take very seriously indeed. They warn that it is just beginning to seriously target UK banks and there is potential for wave after wave of attacks. But only now are the experts fully aware of its devastating potential.

With the US under attack from the Clampi virus, it is believed that over 1,000 computers in the UK have been penetrated. And those computers running Microsoft Windows based operating systems are especially vulnerable to the Clampi virus.

Computer security experts are urging everyone to be particularly careful of falling victim to the virus. They advise all computer users to be on their guard against links embedded within emails from people not known to them, or likewise unfamiliar emails with attachments; but, also be cautious of social networking sites, instant messages, blogs, or websites that they come across during a surf. Innocent appearing websites are one of the most popular ways that such Trojans are distributed around computer networks. The general rule is, say the boffins, never download anything from any site unless you can completely vouch for its credentials.

What’s more, the experts are warning everyone to not only run a good anti-virus software programme, but also keep it up to date.

For more information on this and other computer viruses, help protecting your computer and staying safe on the web visit http://www.computer-protection.co.uk/

financial

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Tags: anti-virus software, Bank, Banking, Clampi, Clampi Virus, Computer Virus, Current Account, hackers, Microsoft Windows, Money, Money Management, on-line banking, on-line fraud, personal details, Trojan, UK Banks, UK Credit Cards

With the news that the UK Co-operative society is looking to increase exposure for their bank division, Coop banks are liable to become an increasingly common site on the UK high street within the coming years. Stage one to test the extent of in-house banking with coop stores, will be the opening of two pilot schemes situated in strategic points in the UK. As well as opening in-house outlets in a similar marketing mould as Tesco. Banking analysts see the Coops move into high street bank on a national scale as a logical extension of their acquisition of Britannia building society in early 2009. A move which increased their asset base considerably, while diluting their management costs. .

There have been Cooperative banks on UK high streets for almost forty years, although their numbers have always been limited. In the wake of the recent economic downturn, and with hopes of a return to economic normality around the corner, the stage is set for the appearance of new and clean faces in the high street. The Cooperative Bank many not be new face but it is certainly shiningly clean

UK politicians have made it no secret that they are keen to see medium sized players make greater inroads into retail banking to improve consumer choice with the Financial Services Authority (FSA) reportedly swamped with applications for banking licences

The Co-op Banking group is bound to be among the front runners, with a track record that shows prudent lending policies, and boasting an average equity to property value of close to 50 percent.

The stage is set for some interesting times in high street banking in the UK high street, with some surprising new faces entering the banking world. The Coop has been around for a long time, yet there new banking policy looks like cleaning up the high street.

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Tags: Bank, Banking, Britannia building society, British Economy, Coop Bank, Cooperative, Current Account, Economy, Employment, Financial News, Financial Services Authority, Money, Money Management, Savings, Tesco, UK Co-operative, UK Credit Cards, UK Economy, UK government, UK Recession

Although your bank manager will tell you that he or she is your friend, and that they have your best interest at heart when they cut your overdraft or credit card levels, don’t believe them. The truth is that banks thrive on people who are in financial trouble and know exactly how to play on your weakened situations to continue to feed their insatiable drive for profit.

More so, that when you go to them on your knees asking for just a little more leeway, they will already have made sure that you will find it difficult if not impossible to find alternative finance elsewhere, and will take full advantage by providing you with additional finance at horrendously high interest rates.

The UK public must surely have learned one expensive and painful lesson from the current financial crisis and that is to keep the credit under control, and to try to do so by achieving and maintaining a credit rating that is as pure and white as the first snows of winter.

And believe it or not, despite prodigious efforts by the FSA to prevent this from happening, lenders, be they banks, building societies or credit card companies, are pooling their efforts to make sure that people who have fallen into debt in the past will find it very difficult to improve their credit rating.

There is, and always has been, a great anomaly about how finance providers look upon a potential client. If someone has money, why should they need to borrow it? Yet in many cases it is sensible to borrow money, particularly for a mortgage, or to buy a new car or even some major household appliance. Banks carry out tens of thousands of transactions every month, although secured loans are much less attractive to them than unsecured loans, where they can make more than twice the interest.

The sad truth of the matter is that if people are in severe financial trouble the last place they should set foot in is a bank, building society or credit card company, except to ask for an extended agreement on the same terms. Under no circumstances should they agree to accept a new refinancing agreement which will certainly be on prohibitive terms.

Only time will cure most people’s problems, and eventually better times will come. In the meantime it is everyone’s interest to keep the head down, draw in the belt even tighter, and repair each credit status. Learning to be less credit dependent will be a challenge for all of us, but it will be justified by never having to bend your knees to your bank manager again.

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Tags: bank manager, Banking, Building Society, Credit, Credit Card, Credit Crunch, credit rating, Current Account, Debt, extended agreement, Finance, finance providers, financial trouble, FSA, Interest Rates, Loans, Money, Money Management, Mortgage, Mortgages, negative equity, Savings, UK Banks, UK Credit Cards, unsecured loans

Recent reports have it that the injection of public money that is supposed to pump new life into the construction industry is just not making it. Construction projects across the UK lay abandoned and uncompleted sector, glaring evidence that the sharpest contraction that the building sector has ever known looks a long way from ending.

According to a recent survey carried out on behalf of the industry, the UK government pledge to re-programme more than £3 billion of publicly owned construction projects , that were due to begin in 2010 and 2011 to this year, have failed to materialise as yet. The idea of bringing these projects forward was to offset that painful lack of new building starts in the private sector.

However a recent report from the Construction Products Association revealed that a nationwide cross section of their members reported that instead of the promised increase in new projects, even existing construction projects have been mothballed by the UK government as funding dries up. These projects include important and much needed public works including schools, hospitals road works and general infrastructure, had found public work had declined over the past year. Of the civil engineering and building companies contributing to the survey, 47 per cent of them reported lower work rates in the first quarter of 2009. Construction companies involved in building social housing reported a fall of project completions 27 percent compared to last year.

According to a spokesman for the UK Contractor’s Group, the government stimuli that was promised in Darling’s budget and pre-budget reports have so far failed to appear and their absence is having a very distinct impact on the UK construction industry, which has been hardest hit by the recession. The sector accounts for about 8 per cent of UK output and a similar percentage of jobs.

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Tags: Alastair Darling, Alistair Darling, British Economy, Budget, Construction Industry, Construction Products Association, Credit Crunch, Economy, Employment, Recession, UK Contractor’s Group, UK Credit Cards, UK government, UK Recession

The last two years have been tough for UK retailers, especially those whose economic survival is based around them being on the High Street. An excess of selling space as well as having to cope with spiraling costs have had a serious negative impact on the retail industry and forecasts are that a number of well known retail chains could go out of business.

Recent statistics show that retail sales per square foot have fallen to around £355 pounds in 2009, down ten percent from their 2007 peak.
Encouraged by the seemingly never ending spending boom, the retail industry added more than 50 million square feet of selling space over the past decade.

The UK’s largest private company Ineos is set to announce on Thursday that it has secured vital agreement from creditors to reset the terms of its $10.3 billion debt burden.
Ineos, one of the world’s biggest chemicals companies, have been in long-running talks with hundreds of creditors about securing additional breathing space under the terms of its debt, after an unprecedented fall in demand and limited market visibility that began last year.

The success or failure of Ineos’s negotiations will be closely observed by a number of other companies in a similar situation who need time as they struggle against the downturn and require to renegotiate large and complex debt structures, involving a variety of different investors,.

The sale of Gatwick, the second-largest UK airport, by Spain’s Ferrovial has been hit by the apparent withdrawal of the last bidder from the contest.

The bidder, a consortium led by Manchester Airport Group and Borealis, the Canadian infrastructure fund, have apparently refused to raise its final bid to meet Ferrovial’s asking price of about £1.4 billion, leaving a gap of at least £100 million to the price being sought by BAA, the UK airports group that is the UK subsidiary of Ferrovial.

Global Infrastructure Partners, pulled out of the bidding in May, when its bid of about £1.36 billion was rejected by Ferrovial. Both groups apparently are interested in acquiring Gatwick, regarded as being one of the most attractive airport assets on the world market. However both now are increasingly reluctant to meet the target price set by BAA, possibly due to recent deterioration in the airport’s traffic performance.

London equity markets fought their way higher, building on the gains of the previous three sessions, although yesterday’s rise was less dramatic, up just 15.38 points to 4361.84. On the other hand, the FTSE 250 stuttered on Thursday after a few days of steady increases. On the day it fell 18, 22 points to close on 7,554.11

Sterling lost ground on Thursday against all the major European currencies.

Pound/US dollar 1.6392
Pound/Euro 1.16
Pound/Japanese Yen 153.6779
Pound/Swiss Franc 1.7618

Stateside, JPMorgan Chase became the second major US bank to report a major profit upsurge for the second quarter. Net profit totalled $2.72 billion (£1.6 billion), making for an increase of 36% on the same period last year. Revenues at the company rose 41% to a record $27.7 billion, impressive but still less than the $3.44 billion that rival Goldman Sachs reported.

The prospect of a bankruptcy and not profits is hanging over the US mid-market lender CIT as hopes of rescue plan led by the government were becoming increasingly remote. A spokesman for CIT announced “There is no appreciable likelihood of additional government support being provided over the near term,” CIT has battled a liquidity crisis and will be required to pay $1 billion of debt that matures next month

On Wall Street, the Dow Jones continued to rise, on the day by 95.61 points to 8711. 82 while the NASDAQ maintained a similar pace, closing up 22.13 points to 1885.03.

Internet search engine Google has seen better-than-expected quarterly results even as revenue growth slowed following the economic downturn.

Google reported net income reach $1.48 billion (£900 million) in the second quarter, compared to $1.25 billion for the previous year. Revenue rose by three percent for the period at $5.52 billion with more than half of that figure emanating from outside the US shores. Analysts reacted broadly positively to the company’s results, particularly their marked decrease in running costs.

China’s economy grew at an annual rate of 7.9% in the second quarter, an increase from 6.1% in the first quarter, thanks to the Chinese government’s substantial stimulus package.

The country’s rapid economic expansion is certainly bucking the global economic trend while most nations in the West continue to experience recession. Expectations in Beijing are that China will achieve 8% growth for 2009, compared to a predicted contraction of between 1% and 1.5% in the US. However, the Chinese government hastened to warn that significant economic challenges have to be overcome for them to achieve their goal.

Russia’s economy shrank 10.1 per cent in the first half of this year, a spokesman for the finance ministry announced this week, its worst decline since the early 1990s.
The credit crunch, falling commodity prices and a gradual devaluation of the state currency, the ruble, have combined to decimate a decade years of rapid economic growth. There are some positive signs however that the pace of economic decline is slowing as industrial production contracted at its slowest pace in six months.

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Tags: British Airways Plc, Economics, Economy, Financial News, Google, Ineos, Money Markets, Retail, Stock Markets, UK Credit Cards

Thursday saw the launch of a long awaited white paper on consumer affairs that would prevent the practice of banks increasing customers’ credit card limits without their permission, as well as completing disallowing the them from sending out unsolicited ‘credit-card cheques’ . According to almost ten percent of the UK population had their credit card limits increased last year without them asking, meaning that to date less than three per cent of the UK’s 30 million card holders have had their borrowing power reduced since the credit crunch began. Banks continue to defend their in your face credit marketing tactics, insisting that full credit checks are made.

Bowing to increasing investor pressure, Royal Bank of Scotland chief executive Stephen Hester has announced his intention to defer part of his controversial 9.6 million pound pay package for an extra two years. Hester has been the subject of criticism for accepting such a large overall package before achieving real results at the loss-making bank,

Disproving the theory that lawyers make money no matter what, was the news that the World’s largest law firm are reporting a very significant dip in profits and the need to make significant cutbacks. The practice, Clifford Chance boasts a client base that includes some of the financial institutions hardest hit by the downturn, from Royal Bank of Scotland to Citigroup.

The prospect of a bidding war for T-Mobile UK was hotting up on Thursday, on the news that Telefonica are also taking a close look at the mobile phone service operator. Spain based Telefonica has been spurred into action by the possibility that Vodafone purchases T-Mobile UK. France Telecom is also reportedly in the running, through forming a joint venture between its UK mobile business Orange and T-Mobile UK.

Marks & Spencer executive chairman Sir Stuart Rose has hinted strongly of his intentions to step down as chief executive in 2010, with his likely replacement looking like being director of food at the company, John Dixon. Rose has insisted that he would only relinquish the chief executive’s role if a successor was found, and after he hands on the keys, will stay on for a period as chairman.
The search for a new executive chairman at M&S could officially begin as early as September.

London equities fell on Thursday as the improving economic outlook failed a stern test in the form of closely-watched US jobs data.
The FTSE 100’s losses accelerated due to a sluggish start to trade across the Atlantic. London’s benchmark index fell 106 points, to 4,234.27. The FTSE 250 closed on 7,374.01 down 132.70

Sterling had another bad day against the leading currencies, falling on all four fronts.
Pound/US dollar 1.6418
Pound/Euro 1.706
Pound/Japanese Yen 157.2965
Pound/Swiss Franc 1.7772

The number of jobs lost in the US last month which was much more than had been expected, coming in at 467,000, as the grass roots of the US economy continued to struggle.

The jobless rate was 9.5% in June, up from 9.4% in May and
The highest since August 1983.

On Wall Street, the Dow Jones took a major tumble on the announcement of the unemployment figures, closing the day down 180.09 points to 8323.97, while the NASDAQ lost 33.02 points to close on 1802.76.

Confirming that the world’s third-largest economy is continuing to expand, China’s manufacturing and business activity for June finished in positive mode.
Another emerging superpower, India has announced a slight step up production, since a sharp downturn began in late 2008.
Meanwhile Japan and Australia are both displaying tentative signs that the worst of the economic downturn may soon be behind them.
Oil fell on Thursday as the market continued to digest US government data showing a large increase in gasoline stocks, increasing crude oil producer’s worries that consumer demand was flagging and the energy markets had been overbought.

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Tags: Bank, Banking, Credit, Credit Crunch, Debt, Financial News, Royal Bank of Scotland, Stephen Hester, UK Banks, UK Credit Cards

As the Royal Bank of Scotland’ struggles to push itself out of the quagmire created by Sir Fred and his crew, unpleasant surprises continue to emerge. A recent statement by incumbent CEO Stephen Hester made at the recent British Property Federation conference. The bank’s losses on real estate loans could be higher than it has provisioned for.
Hester went on to add that the bank’s updated assessment is that it could take between three and five years for the excessive level of property lending to level out. Summing up on a more positive note, Mr. Hester said that he foresaw for the future that RBS would need to reduce its exposure to the sector significantly, but that it would “behave responsibly and play a long game”, helped by the fact that most borrowers were continuing to service the interest on their debts.

Meanwhile UK chancellor Alistair Darling issued a warning to the British Bankers’ Association that further regulation and a crackdown on sloppy boardroom practices are on their way, including new regulations on higher liquidity and capital standards at banks. His announcement comes ahead of the release of a Treasury white paper next week on financial regulation, and the forthcoming EU summit in Brussels on plans for regional regulation of the banks.

That perennial bearer of bad news, the Office for National Statistics announced that UK unemployment has passed the two and a quarter million mark, in the three months to April 2009, making for the highest UK unemployment levels since November 1996. However there was a minor crumb of comfort to be taken from the news that the number of people claiming unemployment benefit rose by only 39,000, less than the 60,000 forecast by analysts.

Bus and rail operator National Express have announced the successful renegotiation of terms against their outstanding £1.2 billion, allaying fears that the company were liable to breach payment conditions set on the existing loan.

National Express have been fighting an uphill battle coping with servicing such a massive debt burden, whilst struggling with a major slump in passenger revenues, especially on its East Coast train franchise. At the same time, payments to the Department for Transport to service the franchise have been on constant increase.

And if things are bad on the ground, then they seem to be a lot worse in the air. If you need confirmation ask Willie Walsh, British Airways chief executive, who is facing fresh conflict with the unions on his proposal that BA staff should follow his personal example and work without pay for a month.

Walsh sent a personal note to each of the company’s 40,000 employees, asking them to volunteer for up to four weeks of unpaid work or unpaid holiday leave. Either option means no salary.

Needless to say it looks like Walsh faces a tough task convincing staff to accept his proposal, being that there is already no love lost between the company and the unions. Both Willie Walsh and BA’s chief financial officer Keith Williams set a precedent by announcing that they will be waiving their salaries for July. However a spokesman for Unite, BA’s biggest union, remained unmoved and unimpressed by observing that: “Willie Walsh can afford to work a month for free. Our members can’t

On the stock market, Sainsbury’s shares dropped 5.65 per cent to 313 pence after a surprise announcement that they plan to raise £445 million of fresh capital through a stock issue estimated to be worth £255 million as well as £190 million of convertible bonds offer. The capital is earmarked to fund the company’s growth; a spokesman for Sainsbury’s pointed out.

On the announcement that they had acquired a majority stake in an Indonesian clove cigarette maker shares in British American Tobacco (BAT) rose 0.2 per cent to 1660 pence. The acquisition that will cost BAT around £300 million will elevate the company to be the world’s fifth-biggest tobacco company, increasing their global market share from 2 per cent to 9 per cent.

The recent publication of the Digital Britain white paper has already worked wonders for the BT Group as hopes that government plans to extend broadband internet access would greatly benefit the fixed-line operator. After an advance of 8 per cent on Tuesday, shares in BT in rose a further 3 per cent to 106 pence.

Yesterday was not such a great day for FTSE. The 100 continued on its course of fluctuation this week falling 50.11 points to finish on 4,278.46. The FTSE 250 continued its rapid downward descent this time losing 174.45 points to close on 7,309.05.

Sterling rose for the second day again ever so slightly against the dollar, while losing considerable ground against the other major currencies

Pound/US dollar 1.6427
Pound/Euro 1.1766
Pound/Japanese Yen 157.0514
Pound/Swiss Franc 1.7711

The US government has announced a major reform of banking regulation to prevent future financial crises. The overhaul will require big banks to set more money aside against future losses to curb excessive risk taking. Consumers will enjoy the protection through a new government agency formed to protect their interests as well as regulating credit on mortgages and credit cards.

The US equities market moved into fluctuation mode on Wednesday as the government released details of their proposed regulations.
The Dow Jones rose 42.77 points to close on 8547.44, while the NASDAQ climbed back over the 1800 barrier, up 23.99 points to 1820.17.

US consumer prices rose less than had been expected in May, as the recession continued to keep inflation down.

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Tags: Alistair Darling, Banking, British American Tobacco, British Economy, Economy, EU summit, Financial News, National Express, Royal Bank of Scotland, Sainsbury, Stephen Hester, UK Banks, UK Credit Cards

Whilst it is easy to gain the government and the banks for the financial quagmire that the UK succeeded in sinking itself in, the public also have to be levied a portion of the blame. As a leading financial analyst proudly proclaims, it was the shopping centres and the credit cards that did it as much as anything else. The banks and credit card seemed driven to provide unlimited credit, and the government turned their backs and pretended that it wasn’t happening. And the British public at large had a great time running up debts on their credit cards that they had no chance. And in some cases, no intention of repaying.

There are people who will be saddled with debts for at least the next decade, and will be paying fairly exorbitant interest on those debts as a lesson on how to use credit cards in the era which is hopefully not too far away. The end of the first great economic turn down of the 21st century.

Let’s face it. Having a credit card at your disposal is very convenient. And make no mistake about it, the majority of people whose lives became very difficult through misuse of the powers and responsibilities that being issued with a credit card entails, will continue to use them in the future.

However the rules of the game will be different. Anyone who has found themselves under an immense burden of debt would never have enjoyed the experience, and will never want to repeat it. And even if they did, the banks will have imposed such a strict system of checks and balances that the chances that it will happen will be miniscule. Credit cards were meant to replace cash and cheques, and when viewed in that light, they do an excellent job. A responsible person with a credit card should only use that card to cover around 40% of their monthly financial outlay, and should stagger payments amounting to no more than a quarter of their monthly credit card bill.

These are very simple rules, but if adhered to, will prevent a repeat of the most uncomfortable experiences that too many people have gone through in the last couple of year.

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Tags: Bank, Banking, Budget, Credit, Credit Crunch, UK Credit Cards

Bank of England profits soared to nearly £1bn last year on the back of operations supporting the financial sector.

Pre-tax profits quintupled to a record £995m in the year ended February, the most since the Bank began revealing its earnings in 1971.
This allowed the bank to pay out a dividend to the Treasury of £417m, up from more than five times from the previous year, according to the bank’s annual report.
The scale of the BOE profits has raised a few eyebrows however, with some analysts of the opinion that the Bank has been charging troubled lenders “distress rates”.

Meanwhile the organisation formed by the UK treasury to handle their interest in the semi-nationalised banks under their control have begun to sound out investors about the possibility in selling off some of their share holdings as stock market revival appears to be increasing confidence in the financial sector.
The body, UK Financial Investments, manage the 43.5 per cent stake in Lloyds Banking Group as well as the 70 per cent stake in Royal Bank of Scotland, hope to have completed some sell offs within the next twelve months.

Shares in both banks rose strongly on Tuesday after news of this possible development began to filter through. Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC (RBS) and Lloyds Banking Group (LYG) rose strongly Tuesday following a report that the government is sounding out investors with a view to selling its interests in the banks – even though that sale could take up to several years. RBS was up 5.8% at 44 pence while Lloyds was up 4.8% at 103 pence, both outperforming the FTSE100 index which was up 0.9%.

The report also said it could take five or six years for the U.K. government to exit the two banks.
HSBC Holdings PLC (HSBA.LN) was up 3.5% at 575 pence while Barclays PLC (BCS) was up 2.4% at 288 pence.

A UK car scrappage scheme championed by Gordon Brown, Britain’s prime minister, got off to a stuttering start on Monday as confusion about how it would work prompted several leading manufacturers to delay their involvement.

Glitches over tax and other administrative issues marred the launch of the scheme while Honda, Ford and GM were reported to be waiting to clear up some important details on how the trade-in scheme will operate , with the first scraps of information only being received from the Department for Business and Regulatory Reform before the weekend.

As expected, Marks & Spencer confirmed yesterday that the dividend due to be paid to shareholders will fall by a third after annual results revealed a near 40% drop in profits. (£604.4million compared to £1billion in 2007) This is the first time that M&S has been forced t cut their dividend since 2000, causing considerable consternation among their shareholders.

Doing better is Scottish & Southern Energy (SSE), who is expected to announce “modest” increase in profits, when producing their annual results on Thursday. Analysts predict that SSE will post underlying profits of about £1.25 billion for the year to the end of March, up only £200,000 from 2007, but still showing an increase. To retain their market share, the energy group has been forced to cut both electricity and gas tariffs during 2008, although both by much less than had been feared.

The benchmark FTSE 100 Index continued to impress, rising 36 points to 4,482.45, while the FTSE 250 index also rose by 121.69 points to close on7698.32
Sterling rose slightly against the dollar and the Euro and rose slightly against the Japanese Yen and the Swiss Franc:
· Pound/US dollar 1.5484

· Pound/Euro 1.11367

· Pound/Japanese Yen 149.02

· Pound/Swiss Franc 1.719

Wall Street had a reasonable day on trading The Dow Jones Average dropped a mere 6.7points to close at 8497.39, while the NASDAQ rose 7.36 points to 1739.72.
The US Senate have voted overwhelmingly in favour of a bill that will impose new restrictions on the credit card industry. Designed to set a curb on sudden interest rate increases and hidden fees The bill marks the first major financial reform made by the Obama administration.

Spokesmen for the credit industry have warned that the measure could lead banks to issue fewer credit cards thus making it more difficult for consumers to get credit.

Hewlett-Packard (HP) reported a 17% fall in quarterly profit, attributed to reduced businesses and consumers spending on computers, printers and ancillary products. .
The world’s top PC marker said that net profit totalled £1.1billion in the three months ended 30 April, whilst warning that profits and revenue were likely to continue to fall during 2009 HP made the expected announcement that they are about to cut around 2% of its global workforce, making for a job loss of more than six thousand people.

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Tags: Credit, Credit Card, Gordon Brown, Hewlett-Packard, Marks & Spencer, Scottish & Southern Energy, UK Credit Cards, UK Financial Investments

Yesterday’s budget was probably the most anticipated, the most forecasted and the most feared for at least two decades in the UK.

It was obvious that UK chancellor Alistair Darling was pinning a lot of his hopes as well as his already tarnished reputation on painting a scenario where rapid economic recovery could only follow some necessary spending cuts that would allow the Treasury to regain control of public finances. In what can only be described as a budget that will continue to lead Britain into a period of long term austerity, Darling announced to parliament that he did not expect public finances to recover to pre-credit crunch levels until 2017-18. As expected, Darling revised his prediction to keep in line with the general consensus that the UK economy would contract by 3.5% in 2009 after borrowing surges to £175bn this year

He did stand firm in his conviction that the economy would begin to recover by the spring of next year.

Under a constant backdrop of dissent from the opposition parties, Chancellor Darling reeled off a series of measures covering the usual round of direct and indirect tax increases and spending cuts.

Smokers and drinkers are usually at the top of the list and 2009 was certainly no exception. Alcohol duties will increase by 2% from midnight, and tobacco duty was already up by the same figure by 18.00. These figures, expected to raise around £6billion by 2012, will mean an increase of 7p on a packet of cigarettes and 6p on a pint of beer.

Car owners and drivers also failed to escape some tax increases, Fuel duty will raise by 2p per litre in September with this increase by followed by a series of 1p a litre each year for the next four years.

January 2010 will see a return of VAT from 15% to 17.5%.

As expected, those who still find themselves in more than £150,000 a year will be asked to pay a price for their success. While this increase in income tax was expected, very few people could have seen the initiation of a top level tax rate of 50% coming, as well as a cut back on tax relief on their pension contributions.

Summing up his speech, an understandably subdued Alastair Darling, again reiterated his promise that UK finances would return to a form of balance by 2016, with net debt peaking at 79 per cent of gross domestic product in 2014.

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Tags: Alastair Darling, Economics, Economy, Financial News, UK Banks, UK Credit Cards