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BBC News

• Ghana 2-1 Tunisia (AET)
  Sun, 05 Feb 2012 22:51:50 GMT
  Ghana qualify for the semi-finals of the Africa Cup of Nations after edging past Tunisia 2-1, following extra-time.
  

• Capello opposes FA Terry decision
  Sun, 05 Feb 2012 22:49:20 GMT
  England coach Fabio Capello says he disagrees with the Football Association's decision to strip John Terry of the national team's captaincy.
  

BBC Business News

• Greek leaders pause bailout talks
  Sun, 05 Feb 2012 21:01:42 GMT
  Party leaders in Greece's ruling coalition end talks on details for a crucial 130bn-euro EU rescue plan without agreement.
  

• Debt questions answered by an expert
  Sun, 05 Feb 2012 15:43:23 GMT
  A consumer expert answers readers' questions about debts
  

BBC: Robert Peston

• Peston Picks is moving
  Thu, 12 May 2011 12:20:59 +0000
  
  

  My blog is dead. Long live the new blog. Or to put it another way, my page - and those of other BBC bloggers - is having a makeover. So if you don't want to read on, and you simply want to read my latest post, click here.

  The reason for the change is to bring together more of my output in one place. So on the new page, you'll find many of my TV and radio pieces, and (soon) my tweets.

  If I go mad and decide to do other social media, that'll be there too.

  Fingers crossed that you like what you see. I can't hope that all of you will love all the changes. And in particular, I am sure some of you will be frustrated that (for cost reasons) there is now a 400 character limit on the comments you can leave.

  Please don't let that put you off expressing yourselves. I can't tell you how much I value your opinions and the debate we have.

  As for the posts I've written since Picks was launched in January 2007, the best place to find them is here. For future posts, the best URL for me is still bbc.co.uk/robertpeston

  
  

• HSBC banks on UK
  Wed, 11 May 2011 09:43:37 +0000
  

  For all HSBC's mutterings that it's fed up with having the UK as its home base - because of the incremental tax it pays here and what it perceives as an anti-bank climate - there is no evidence from today's strategy review that it is growing any cooler on having a big presence in the UK.

  

  In fact, if anything, the opposite is implied by its assessment of where best to allocate its capital and expertise over the coming decade. The UK is categorised by HSBC as a "strategic market", which is HSBC's highest accolade, partly because it has a massive presence in retail banking here and partly because it wants to be "the UK's leading bank for international businesses".

  Interestingly, and in spite of the superior growth rates of emerging economies, HSBC expects the UK to still be the sixth largest economy in the world in 2050, only a fraction smaller than Germany, but bigger than Brazil, Mexico and France.

  The British economy is expected by HSBC to grow faster than the US, Japan, and France over the coming 40 years - and a bit slower than Germany (but, of course, massively slower than China, India, Brazil, Mexico and Turkey). Some of that British momentum, compared to the eurozone and Japan for example, is presumably due to an expected faster rate of population growth in the UK - which is not universally popular.

  But even so, income per capita in the UK in 2050 is predicted to be $49,000, 6.5% below German income per head and almost 20% greater than French per capita income.

  For HSBC, the important trends are expected annual growth of world trade of 8.9% in the coming 10 years and the persistence of huge financial imbalances between the saving and exporting nations (China, India, Germany, and so on) and the consuming and borrowing nations (the US and much of Europe).

  Interestingly, HSBC expects the UK to be a rare example of a country moving from deficit into surplus, by 2020 (or rather it buys into the analysis of the consultants McKinsey and the World Economic Forum to that effect - although there is a bit of a mystery here, because HSBC attributes the forecast to McKinsey, but it's not in the relevant McKinsey document).

  The point, for HSBC, of analysing the world in these terms is that it wants to be the leader in financing those swelling trade flows between emerging economies and developed ones, and also in the related businesses of shipping China's and India's and Taiwan's surplus capital to the US and Europe.

  Which means that what it calls Global Banking and Markets (and others call investment banking) together with its Commercial Banking arm will be the focus of future expansion.

  That looks rational for one of the world's genuinely global banks. But it is slightly disturbing for the rest of us, perhaps, because the bank is assuming that the leaders of the G20 most powerful economies will fail in their avowed aim of stabilising the global economy by reducing China's funding surplus and America's funding deficit, the imbalances that were a fundamental cause of the great crash of 2007-8.

  HSBC's success in that sense seems in part to be predicated on the idea that the global financial economy won't become a much safer place.

  Like all sensible businesses, HSBC say it will reallocate capital to where it sees superior growth or where it has substantial market shares. So it will only stay in retail banking in places, like the UK for example, where it is big enough to be a price leader, rather than a follower.

  The new chief executive, Stuart Gulliver, recognises that current returns are too low, partly because the bank's running costs are too high. So it plans to reduce annual costs by between $2.5bn and $3.5bn over the next three years - though it hasn't said how.

  There is one cost that particularly rankles with HSBC - the special banking levy imposed by the British government. What it finds particularly galling, I am told, is that it pays the levy on uninsured deposits outside the UK, which most would see as a stable form of funding that contributes to the perception of HSBC as being a relatively safe bank.

  Given that Treasury said the levy was designed in part to encourage banks to finance themselves in a more prudent way, it is a bit odd that the levy is costing HSBC around £370m this year, almost exactly the same as Royal Bank of Scotland and Barclays, and £110m more than Lloyds, in spite of HSBC's funding arrangements being widely seen to be much more prudent and stable than those of the other UK banks.

  It is perhaps understandable therefore that HSBC hopes the Treasury will look again at the structure of the levy. Although - as I've said and elucidated before - HSBC's not-very-veiled threat to leave the UK if the levy isn't reformed doesn't look credible.

  
  

Sky Business News

• US Jobs Rise Boosts Hopes For World Economy
  
  The global economy received a boost after better-than-expected US jobs figures pushed the Dow Jones stock market index to its highest level since before the 2008 financial crisis.
  

• £1m Portas Contest To Breathe Life Into Towns
  
  Towns are being offered a slice from a £1m pot to come up with ideas for reviving their high streets.
  

Citywire News

• Sunday Papers: Barclays? profit set for £6bn
  Sun, 05 Feb 2012 05:09:00 Z
  And Reckitt Benckiser is set to ditch quarterly reporting of profits amid fears that the long-term growth of the company is under threat.
  

• Saturday Papers: Nasdaq jumps to 11-year high on surge in US jobs
  Sat, 04 Feb 2012 07:30:00 Z
  The report showed that 243,000 Americans found work in January, helping to drive the unemployment rate down to 8.3% from 8.5% in December.
  

Citywire Money, Tax and Property

• The 20 postcodes most 'at risk' of burglary
  Fri, 03 Feb 2012 09:35:34 Z
  The areas in the UK that see the most home insurance claims for theft or burglary, and the postcodes that are least at risk.
  

• House prices flat as market 'dogged by uncertainty'
  Mon, 30 Jan 2012 00:01:00 Z
  January marked the eighteenth month that house prices did not rise, according to Hometrack.
  

Citywire Investment News

• Sunday Papers: Barclays? profit set for £6bn
  Sun, 05 Feb 2012 05:09:00 Z
  And Reckitt Benckiser is set to ditch quarterly reporting of profits amid fears that the long-term growth of the company is under threat.
  

• Saturday Papers: Nasdaq jumps to 11-year high on surge in US jobs
  Sat, 04 Feb 2012 07:30:00 Z
  The report showed that 243,000 Americans found work in January, helping to drive the unemployment rate down to 8.3% from 8.5% in December.
  

Times Online Top Stories

• Government scales back child worker vetting scheme
  Tue, 15 Jun 2010 12:05:54 GMT
  Plans to vet millions of people working with children and vulnerable adults are to be scaled back to ?common sense? levels, the Government announced todayimg width='1' height='1' src='http://feeds.timesonline.co.uk/c/32313/f/440134/s/b2c452c/mf.gif' border='0'/br/br/a href="http://da.feedsportal.com/r/73199304108/u/0/f/440134/c/32313/s/187450668/kg/45/a2.htm"img src="http://da.feedsportal.com/r/73199304108/u/0/f/440134/c/32313/s/187450668/kg/45/a2.img" border="0"//a
  

• Live: Bloody Sunday families shown Saville report
  Tue, 15 Jun 2010 10:03:21 GMT
  9.40 BST On a January morning 38 years ago, 13 protesters died at the hands of British paratroopers and 14 were injured, one so seriously he died four months later. For many of their relatives, the years since have been dominated by the search for truth about what happened during 25 chaotic minutes in central Londonderry.img width='1' height='1' src='http://feeds.timesonline.co.uk/c/32313/f/440134/s/b2c072c/mf.gif' border='0'/br/br/a href="http://da.feedsportal.com/r/73199169760/u/0/f/440134/c/32313/s/187434796/a2.htm"img src="http://da.feedsportal.com/r/73199169760/u/0/f/440134/c/32313/s/187434796/a2.img" border="0"//a
  

FT.com - Financial Markets News

• Doubt cast on any future Scottish sovereign rating
  Sun, 05 Feb 2012 21:41:44 GMT
  Standard Poor?s, Moody?s and Fitch have privately indicated that an independent nation could not expect to automatically inherit triple A status
  

• Record global sales of junk bonds
  Sun, 05 Feb 2012 20:43:18 GMT
  Junk bond issuance totalled a record $19.6bn last week, including a sizeable chunk of debt that European companies sold in the US
  

FT.com - Your Investments

• Investors offered renovation gamble
  Fri, 3 Feb 2012 18:37:41 +0000
  Tax incentives for renovating business premises provide a low-outlay, high-risk opportunity
  

• Call for fund fees 'labelling'
  Fri, 3 Feb 2012 18:24:22 +0000
  A new fund fees disclosure would have to be voluntary, industry claims
  

FT.com - Equities

• North Asia to lead wave of MA activity
  Sun, 05 Feb 2012 17:05:21 GMT
  Japanese and South Korean companies are expected to lead a wave of acquisition activity out of the region this year
  

• Positive employment data lift US stocks
  Fri, 03 Feb 2012 23:12:45 GMT
  US stocks hit six-month high on news that unemployment fell to a three-year low in January with banks among the main beneficiaries
  

FT.com - Your Pension

• Savers?gain better access to 'protected rights'
  Fri, 3 Feb 2012 18:12:56 +0000
  Easier access to 'protected rights' pension funds will offer flexibility and potential inheritance tax savings
  

• Warning over holiday lets for pensions
  Fri, 3 Feb 2012 17:53:36 +0000
  New schemes allow Sipp investors to gain exposure to property investments ? but some administrators are refusing to hold them
  

FT.com - Your Property

• Best mortgage rates go private
  Fri, 3 Feb 2012 18:20:07 +0000
  Some private banks will price their mortgage rates relative to overnight Libor, which is closer to Bank of England base rate at just under 0.6 per cent
  

• Chelsea's five-year fixed-rate mortgage
  Fri, 3 Feb 2012 18:11:05 +0000
  3.19 per cent deal comes with a fee of £1,495 and is available to borrowers with a deposit of 30 per cent or more
  

FT.com - Your Tax

• Investors offered renovation gamble
  Fri, 3 Feb 2012 18:37:41 +0000
  Tax incentives for renovating business premises provide a low-outlay, high-risk opportunity
  

• Can I offset losses on my Railtrack shares?
  Fri, 3 Feb 2012 18:21:10 +0000
  Does a foolish investment entitle me to a tax rebate?