Industry news

The UK’s services sector showed slow-down in December according to the monthly services purchasing managers' index (PMI), with PMI falling to a six month low of 58.8.

The slowdown in activity saw the services sector underperform against analyst predictions, who had expected a continuation of Novembers PMI of 60.

Despite the underperformance, the PMI shows continued growth with expectations of further growth in 2014, with businesses seeking to expand while banks are still lending.

UK services sector reports strong growth

Telecommunications giant Telefonica is moving ahead with plans for a joint offer takeover of TIM Brasil.

The joint offer according to sources quoted in Italian newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore (which owns a stake in TIM Brasil), is part of Telefonica’s plan to acquire and break up the unit.

The joint offer could potentially be ready by the end of this month. News of the potential purchasing plan comes despite pressure on the telecommunication giant to reduce its grip of the Brazilian telephone market.

Telefonica agrees on $1 billion sale of O2 Ireland to 3

Telefonica sells online travel agency Rumbo to Bravofly

Cybersecurity company FireEye Inc has bought computer forensics specialists Mandiant Corp in a $1.05 billion deal.

Mandiant has hit the headlines in the past for its role in revealing the involvement of a specialised Chinese military unit’s involvement in hacking major U.S. companies.

The markets responded favourably with FireEye shares rising by 20 per cent on the announcement of the merger, which creates a cybersecurity company focused on contemporary cloud based services.

FireEye has said that it expects to see revenue growth of 50 per cent this year.

Shortages in IT security specialists fail to meet demand

New cyber-crimes unit looks to create links with the City

The UK construction industry has recorded strong growth, with eight months of continuous growth on record from increased commercial projects and growth in the economy.

With a PMI of 62.1 in December, the construction industry continued to grow with increasing employment in the industry and anticipation of greater increases over the new year from improved business conditions.

Increasing projects have created a strain on construction supply stocks which have in turn resulted in increased project delivery times.

New figures shows signs of recovery in UK construction

Glitches have hit customers of RBS and Natwest banks, with many having their cards denied at Tesco petrol stations.

The fault appears to have been caused at the Tesco end of operations and be limited to pay-at-pump transactions with customer pins being denied.

Tesco said: "We are investigating reports of problems affecting some of our pay-at-pump services. We apologise to our customers for any inconvenience caused."

The technical glitch impacting the bank users comes after a series of technical issues over 2013.

NatWest hit by further IT failings

Regulators move to investigate RBS IT failings

The BBC has placed a tender for a web analytics system for marketing and web reporting, with the total contract value given as £18 million over three years.

The analytics system would be used to gather data used for regulatory reports as well as being used to drive overall efficiency and value for money for licence payers.

The analytics services are divided into two lots, one being a single supplier framework for the general analytics services, and the other lot being a multi-supplier framework for specialist services including predictive and social media analytics.

BBC tenders for mobile services provider

The Labour party have claimed that the six main energy suppliers (SSE, E.ON, EDF, npower, Scottish Power and British Gas) have inflated prices artificially over the past three years.

The Labour party who have promised to freeze energy prices, claimed after analysing official figures that the six big energy firms had paid £4 billion more for power than the going market rate, resulting in inflated prices for customers.

Shadow energy secretary Caroline Flint said that households pay around £50 per year more with the major energy suppliers for energy, than they would pay on the open market.

The shadow energy secretary said: "Energy companies always blame wholesale costs when they put up bills, but it now looks like they could have deliberately inflated prices to boost profits from their power stations.”

She added: "The time has come for a complete overhaul of our energy market. Labour will break up the big energy companies, put an end to the secret deals and force them to do all of their trading on the open market."

Representative of the six suppliers, Energy UK, said that the posted figures covered more than the wholesale cost of energy.

British Gas rolls out new SAP billing scheme

Centrica pulls out of energy infrastructure expansion

India’s central bank has revealed that the mobile banking uptake has remained below expectations.

While the central bank said that uptake had been encouraging, it pointed to limitations created by device incompatibility with mobile banking and a failure to create industry collaboration.

The central bank commented: “Helped by the rapid spread of use of mobile telephony, the growth in mobile banking has been encouraging over last three years,” but “the growth and acceptance of mobile banking as a channel of accessing banking service has been below expectation."

Banks have viewed mobile applications and services as being key to the expansion of banking businesses in India, particularly within rural areas.

Indian consumers at the front of mobile commerce uptake

Christmas period sales for high street John Lewis retailer soared by 7.2 per cent year-on-year, as the business recorded strong sales from on-line sales.

Total sales reached £734 million with johnlewis.com taking 31 per cent of total business over the festive period.

Increased sales were also attributed to increased mobile traffic and a greater than expected rush in the final holiday shopping days.

John Lewis sees profits grow by 59 percent from strong e-commerce

Chief financial officer (CFO) Simon Herrick has resigned from his position after the high-street chain posted poor sales figures for the Christmas period and issued a profit warning.

Debenhams posted just 0.1 per cent growth in stores over the past 17 weeks and reported no increases in the week before Christmas.

Simon Herrick who had been CFO for two years had faced criticism for failing to account for costs relating to the relocation of the company’s headquarters and development work to Debenhams’ flagship store.

Neil Kennedy, director of finance, will be temporarily appointed as an interim CFO.