The disastrous earthquake in Haiti has dominated our screens for the past couple of weeks, with thousands of lives lost, or in grave danger, and aid only making its way to the country slowly.

If you have been touched by this tragedy, UNICEF http://www.unicef.org.uk/ is calling for businesses to make a contribution, which can be generated in a number of ways:

A corporate donation is a straightforward transaction of funds, which UNICEF will then publicise to key stakeholders. If you want to get your whole business involved, employee fundraising provides an opportunity for everyone to show their support. Face to face appeals, … Continue Reading

A new study from Lloyds TSB Commercial suggests that British businesses are still reeling from the effects of recession and are as such ill-prepared to face a return to economic growth.

The research reveals that a third of firms (31%) have not taken any steps whatsoever to prepare their business for the upturn, while 36% don’t believe they need to do anything to ensure their business is ready to benefit as the recovery starts to gain momentum.

Amongst the 31% of firms that have not taken action to prepare for a recovery, 17% stated they hadn’t thought about it. However, 43% recognised … Continue Reading

The Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee today voted to maintain the official Bank Rate paid on commercial bank reserves at 0.5%.

The Committee also voted to continue with its programme of asset purchases, known as quantitative easing, totalling £175 billion financed by the issuance of central bank reserves.

The Committee expects the announced programme to take another month to complete, the scale of which will be kept under review.

Commenting on today’s decision, David Kern, Chief Economist at the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC), said:

“Though we are not surprised by the MPC’s decision to keep Bank Rate at 0.5%, we are … Continue Reading

Last week, the FTSE 100 reached the 5,000 point mark for the first time this year. Now, Richard Moore, manager of the Santander UK growth fund at Santander Asset Management UK, gives his thoughts on what this means for the market:

“The rise to 5000 on the FTSE100 means that the market has rallied in excess of 40 per cent since the low point reached in early March 2009. Economic growth across the world has been picking up in response to unprecedented levels of Central Bank stimulus and looking ahead there are two reasons for investors to remain hopeful that the … Continue Reading

The majority of the UK’s SMEs are bullish about their prospects in ‘the worst recession in living memory’, according to new research from business insurance provider Hiscox.

More than half (54%) of UK SMEs report that they are confident their business will survive the downturn and almost half (48%) claim that they have taken no additional measures to ride out the downturn.

Among those who have taking action to survive the downturn, almost nine out of ten (88%) reported that they have not enforced salary cuts, while 87% have continued with bonus payments. Furthermore, more than four in five (85%) have … Continue Reading

The latest figures from the Office of National Statistics have revealed that business investment for the second quarter of 2009 was an estimated 10.4% lower than the previous quarter and 18.4% lower than the same period last year.

Declines in business investment occurred in most industries, with the quarterly fall in business investment mainly due to reduced capital spending by industries classified as private sector manufacturing (down 16.8 %), private sector non-manufacturing (down 9.7%) and public corporations non-manufacturing (down 7.2%).

Within the private sector manufacturing the fall in capital spending was due to industries within food, drink and tobacco (down 20.8%), engineering … Continue Reading

Historically, the interest rate charged by HM Revenue & Customs on tax repayments has been set at 1.5 percentage points below the Bank of England base rate.

When the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee voted to reduce the Bank of England base rate to 1.5% in January, the interest on tax repayments fell to the lowest possible rate of 0% and has stayed at that level ever since.

Now, HMRC has announced that a new minimum interest rate of 0.5% is to be set on tax repayments, so that interest will still be payable even when the Bank of … Continue Reading

New figures released today support recent reports that business confidence is rising, albeit from rather depressed levels given the economic downturn.

The Business in Britain survey from Lloyds TSB Commercial charts the performance and views of more than 2,500 UK firms. The latest results show that firms are hopeful of an increase in sales and orders by the end of 2009 but profits will continue to fall for many as the recession makes it difficult to make price rises.

The survey’s business confidence index, which tracks firms’ expectations for sales orders and profits over the coming six months, has risen to … Continue Reading