Banks are being given new powers to delay and investigate suspicious payments. From the end of this month, they will be able to pause transactions for up to 72 hours where there are reasonable grounds to suspect a payment is fraudulent. Currently, they must either process or refuse a payment by the end of the next business day. It has also been revealed that from next week, banks will have the option to charge fraud victims a £100 “excess” charge if they claim compensation when they have been tricked into transferring sums of up to £85,000 to criminals via “authorised push payment” (APP) scams. However. Given that 32% of APP fraud cases are for amounts of £100 or less, according to official data from UK Finance, this means almost a third of victims will not get their money back, in essence. Rocio Concha, of consumer group Which? told The Daily Telegraph: “The Payment Systems Regulator must be prepared to change the level of the excess if, as a result of the decision, fraudsters start to focus their attention on lower-value fraud”. TSB, Nationwide, Virgin Money, Clydesdale Bank, Yorkshire Bank and AIB all told the Financial Times they will not apply the charges, while Barclays, Lloyds, HSBC, Monzo, Starling, the Co-operative Bank and Danske Bank say they have not yet decided. An estimated £460m was lost to fraud in the last year.

The pound has because Andrew Bailey, the Governor of the Bank of England, told The Guardian he thought interest rate cuts could become a “bit more aggressive”. Sterling fell by as much as 0.8% and as low as $1.317 for the first time in a fortnight after Bailey gave his interview to the newspaper, in which he also said the interest rate setting Monetary Policy Committee members at the central bank could become “a bit more activist” on lowering borrowing costs. Previously, Bailey had said policymakers would cut rates “gradually,” comments which had sent the value of the pound as high as $1.343.

UK investors withdrew £564m from equity funds globally in September, the first equity fund outflows in 11 months, according to analysts at Calastone, who suggest worries about the UK economy and euro zone growth have fuelled the exodus. They note in particular that investors were especially negative when it came to UK-focused equity funds, because, it said, of downbeat commentary on the economy from the new Labour Government.

J Sainsbury CEO Simon Roberts, meanwhile, is claiming that the supermarket’s customers are holding off on making larger purchases because of uncertainty regarding Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ upcoming Budget. Reeves has said repeatedly it will involve “difficult decisions” on tax, comments which are scaring customers off, Roberts told Reuters. Households “inevitably are wanting to be clearer about what’s going to happen next,” he said.

The Chancellor, meanwhile, has been told by The County Councils Network (CCN) to let local authorities decide whether or not to charge single people living alone full council tax. They currently get a 25% discount on the basis they use fewer council resources than couples or families living together. The discount equates to £543 on average this year for a band D property, and is claimed by 8.4m people, including roughly 4m pensioners. Rachel Reeves has ruled out scrapping the tax break at a national level, but a Treasury spokesman refused to rule out devolving the decision to each local council, when asked about the recommendation by The Daily Telegraph.

Civil servants working for the Office for National Statistics (ONS) have voted overwhelmingly to go on strike because they are being told to go back to work in the office for at least two days a week. The Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union members first voted in principle for strike action in April, since when they have refused to go into the office at all, or work overtime, out of hours, or outside their grade. Now, the PCS can announce escalated industrial action at any point over the next six months. “If management wants to ensure the work at ONS remains unaffected, they must engage in meaningful talks with us to end this dispute,” PCS General Secretary Fran Heathcote told The Daily Telegraph.  Any disruption to ONS services could impact on the economy, as the ONS produces monthly data on inflation, employment and GDP, which inform the Bank of England’s decisions on interest rates, among other things. However, an ONS spokesman said: “We have robust plans in place and do not anticipate any disruption to key ONS publications”. They added: “We still believe firmly that a reasonable level of office attendance – in line with the wider civil service – is in the best interests of the ONS and of all our colleagues. Face-to-face interaction supports personal collaboration, learning and innovation”.

A major court case involving aircraft leasing firms and their insurers began at London’s High Court yesterday. The dispute concerns who should foot the bill for 145 airplanes worth a combined $3bn that have been stranded in Russia since the war in Ukraine began in February 2022. The owners of the planes - which include AerCap, the world’s largest commercial aircraft leasing company - are seeking redress from their insurers, arguing there is no realistic prospect the jets will be returned. The insurers, among them AIG, Chubb, Allianz, Liberty and Lloyd’s of London, deny liability, however, and are refusing to pay out. They are expected to argue in court that the planes, mostly Airbus and Boeing craft, are still operational; that they could be recovered at some point - most likely when the war ends; and that the way insurance policies were worded means the lessors are not covered. The Court will also determine whether any liability on the part of the insurance companies fall under the lessor’s ‘All Risk’ or ‘War Risk’ policies. War Risk policies have ‘an aggregate’, meaning there is a maximum amount of money an insurance company will pay to cover claims, while All Risk policies do not. The case, due to end before the end of the year, “is seen as a bellwether for parallel lawsuits in Ireland and the USA over who should pay for around 400 planes, valued at almost $10 billion, left in Russia after the West imposed sanctions over the war,” Reuters says.

Starling Bank has been fined £28.96m by The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) for what the regulator called "shockingly lax" financial crime controls that “left the financial system wide open to criminals and those subject to sanctions”. Part of the problem was that the challenger bank’s controls had not kept pace with its rapid growth, the FCA added. Starling, founded in 2014, had 43,000 customers in 2017 and 3.6m in 2023. The FCA highlighted how Starling’s automated screening system had - since 2017 - only been screening against "a fraction" of the full list of those subject to financial sanctions. Starling became aware of the issue in January 2023 and reported "multiple potential breaches of financial sanctions to the relevant authorities," the FCA noted. The bank had also failed to comply with an earlier order not to open any new accounts for high-risk customers: despite agreeing with the order, Starling opened 54,000 accounts for 49,000 high-risk customers between September 2021 and November 2023. As Starling cooperated and agreed to resolve issues, the fine was reduced from £40.96m. Starling said it fully accepted the FCA's findings, adding that it "regrets and apologises for the events and shortcomings" that led to the fine and that it has “invested heavily to put things right”.

British Land has bought seven retail parks from Canadian investment giant Brookfield for £441m. They include Elliott’s Field Shopping Park in Rugby, Central Retail Park in Falkirk and Wellington Retail Park in Waterlooville.

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