Finanse

Low-income households are now starting to receive the latest cost-of-living payment from the government to tackle ongoing high bills. Eight million means-tested benefits claimants, including people on Universal Credit, should receive the £301 instalment between now and 17 May.more

Italian restaurant chain Prezzo will shut a third of its restaurants after being hit by rising costs for pizza and pasta ingredients and energy. The group said closing the 46 loss-making sites will put 810 staff at risk of redundancy.more

If you’ve got an address like Buckingham Palace or Downing Street, you might think your luck was already in. But this week bosses at the People’s Postcode Lottery were stunned to discover it has players in these very high places – and not just Buck House and the PM’s London home either! more

In the last six months, 22 percent of employees changed jobs, according to the 41st edition of the Randstad Labor Market Monitor. It added that there were more people for whom the motivation for the change was higher wages. Fears of losing their jobs have declined and ratings of the possibility of finding a new one have improved.more

Cypriot authorities announced yesterday that they have taken harsh action against those accused by the United States and Britain of helping Russian oligarchs circumvent sanctions imposed on Moscow after the invasion of Ukraine.more

Almost 5,000 applications to Sadiq Khan’s £110m Ulez scrappage fund have been approved – with van drivers claiming the lion’s share of the cash.more

Reports of people being scammed when trying to buy concert tickets have surged, a major bank is warning. With demand to attend live events soaring after the coronavirus lockdowns, Lloyds said music lovers hoping to see their favourite artists perform live this summer need to be on their guard.more

A coach company is selling tickets to London on Coronation day for £2 in a bid to boost the attractiveness of long-distance bus travel. FlixBus, which celebrates its second UK anniversary today, is offering the cut-price tickets on new routes from Peterborough and Stevenage and on its Bristol to London route, which is being increased from four to seven buses a day.more

Households across the UK are continuing to struggle with their weekly food shops as millions face double-digit inflation. Rising costs are largely being driven by stubbornly high food and drink costs, which have risen at their fastest rate in 45 years, according to figures released this week by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).more

Delhi in India, Phnom Penh in Cambodia and Kathmandu in Nepal are the cheapest places in the world to visit in 2023. - according to a ranking by the Traveller's Elixir portal. By contrast, the most expensive are Monaco, Saint-Barthelemy in the Lesser Antilles and Gstaad in Switzerland.more

In 2022, foreigners bought almost 14,400 flats in Poland, 35 per cent more than a year earlier, GetHome.pl expert Marek Wielgo calculated. He pointed out that the largest group of buyers were citizens of Ukraine, transactions involving citizens of Belarus increased significantly.more

A trio of telecoms firms have been accused of overcharging hundreds of thousands of landline-only customers by almost £200m, according to research. Economists at Fideres argue that almost 600,000 UK landline-only customers have been charged “excessive” prices since 2009.more

Travellers arriving in London in the period around the coronation of King Charles III will face "unavoidable disruption", trade union Unite warned yesterday as it announced another strike by security screening staff at Heathrow Airport.more

Lib Dem research finds nine councils where average repair time is four weeks or longer.more

New York City has the world's largest concentration of millionaires. With a result of 340 thousand. This American city is ahead of, among others, Tokyo (290,300) and the San Francisco Bay Area (285,000).more

The cost of British food staples such as cheese, white bread and porridge oats have soared – with one brand of cheddar increasing by 80 per cent in one year. more

Households in Spain are shifting to "survival mode"; the percentage of families with severe financial difficulties, unable to cover basic needs, has risen from 6 percent in 2020 to 11 percent in 2022, according to the OCU consumer organization's annual report published in April.more

Nearly half a million landlords are expected to sell up in the next five years, as the baby boomer generation retires and cashes in their nest eggs. Around 140,000 landlords sold up and left the market last year after reaching retirement age, according to research from estate agent Hamptons. Almost 100,000 a year are expected to follow them for the next half decade.more

One in eight Britons have paid for private health services in the last year, amid frustration with delays in getting NHS treatment and a growing willingness to buy care using salary or savings.more

Supermarket shoppers have long been on the lookout for yellow stickers placed on cut-price products at the end of the aisle that are approaching their best-before date.more

Confidence among finance chiefs at the UK's biggest companies has seen its sharpest rise since 2020. The Deloitte survey of chief financial officers showed sentiment rebounded as their concerns about energy prices and Brexit problems eased. more

Royal Mail and union leaders have come to an initial agreement after a bitter dispute over pay, jobs and conditions. more

The number of international visitors to Ireland over the first three months of the year remained down 16% compared to the same period in 2019, before the pandemic hit.more

British shoppers are switching from fresh to frozen food as they try to keep down spending amid the cost of living crisis, retail data suggests. The soaring cost of the weekly shop has been a significant factor in the squeeze on UK households, with food price inflation running at 18.2% amid high energy prices and shortages of salad vegetable because of bad weather in Europe.more

Hedge funds are among the big winners of the global spike in food prices that followed Russia's invasion of Ukraine; ten of the world's largest funds achieved profits estimated at almost USD 2 billion, notes the British "Guardian".more