Business Services

Account registers, suspicious transaction reports, and know your customer rules are expensive - for banks and their customers.

Now recession is biting, managers are finding that their much hyped risk management strategies aren't a great deal of use.

Savings, credit cards, mortgages - internet-based financial services company Egg is all about money. For FD Stracey Cartwright that means acquiring new customers at £25 a head, justifying a marketing spend of £50m to analysts, and, most of all, turning dotcom losses into break-even by the last quarter of the year.

The amount of laundering is now so huge - the International Monetary Fund estimates it at between 2% and 5% of world GDP - that thousands of businesses could be harbouring dirty money without realising it.

First-quarter GDP growth and earnings reports in the US weren't good - and markets are still relying on their monthly fix of lower interest rates from Alan Greenspan.

Far from being just a commodity, companies must invest in IT if they want to gain a competitive edge

Improving business management - and having fun to boot

Investors want greater disclosure of green policies - so how much CO2 does it take to make a packet of crisps?

FDs are set to shoulder the green reporting burden. But first they have to work out what the reports will look like