5 Things that mattered 30/9/18

Labour reveals workers’ ownership funds

The shadow chancellor John McDonnell says all large companies should hand over equity to workers- with stakes worth £500 a year. In one of the most interventionist policies seen in many years, Labour’s McDonnell will set out plans for “inclusive ownership funds”- in which firms would have to put 1% of their shares into the fund every year up to a maximum of 10%, should the party win the next election. Any additional capital, estimated at £2.1bn a year by the end of a five-year Parliamentary term – would go into a fund to pay for public services and welfare, part of the plans to be laid out at the Labour party conference,

Giant bank fraud in H1

A total of £503.4 million is revealed as stolen by criminals through authorised and unauthorised fraud in the first six months of 2018, new data from UK Finance shows. During the same period, the finance industry prevented £705.7 million of unauthorised fraud, equivalent to £2 in every £3 of attempted unauthorised fraud. Newly-collected data, published for the first time, reveals that purchase scams were the most prevalent authorised push payment (APP) scam in the first half of 2018, accounting for almost two thirds of reported APP cases with a total of £19.4 million lost.

Next offers No-deal view

Next produces a Brexit analysis outlining the risks the fashion retailer faces from a no-deal withdrawal from the EU. As a response to the uncertainty of Brexit, Next has hedged its exposure to the pound for products it intends to sell up to January 2020, so does not expect any cost price inflation over this period, irrespective of how the currency moves.

New Budget date

To avoid clashing with the final stage of Brexit negotiations in November, Philip Hammond confirms the date of the Budget as 29 October- a week after a high-profile Brussels Brexit summit. At the same time, the Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply (CIPS) suggested in a report that delays of only half an hour at UK ports and the Irish border would risk one in 10 British firms going bankrupt.

Auditor examination announced

Business Secretary Greg Clark asks the Competition and Markets authority (CMA) to examine competition in the audit industry. He also asks John Kingman (who is already conducting a review of the Financial Reporting Council) to remove conflicts of interest that affect auditing process.

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