The Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) is under growing pressure from the firms it regulates to rethink fraud refund rules that industry chiefs say could wreak havoc for both companies and consumers, City AM reports. New measures coming in as a consequence of new powers given to the payments watchdog under the Government’s Financial Services and Markets Act, will force banks and other payment firms to refund victims of authorised push payment (APP) fraud up to a limit of £415,000 kick in from 7^th October, with the cost split between the companies used to send and receive the payment. Fraudsters tricked Brits out of at least £459.7m via APP fraud scams last year, according to banking trade body UK Finance. Most of these involved criminals tricking victims into making payments for non-existent purchases, or investment and romance scams. However, some experts believe the true figure is likely closer to £700m as around a third of scams are estimated to go unreported, the newspaper says. It further understands that dozens of payment firms are lobbying for the PSR to delay or scale back its proposals, saying that few are ready to implement them, meaning the payments system could grind to a halt. “There is literally a chance that people don’t get money or can’t pay for services or things that they want to in a timely manner because of firms having to deal with this – big and small,” according to one senior unnamed industry figure quoted by City AM. The Payments Association, which has more than 200 members, is also lobbying for a lower refund limit of £30,000; while the fintech trade body Innovate Finance wants a £85,000 limit, which it says would cover 99.7% of cases. “The £415,000 limit will be detrimental to fintechs and challengers trying to provide a competitive landscape to have a better outcome for the end consumer,” CEO Janine Hirt said, adding: “You could end up with a situation in October where this implementation could threaten to freeze our payment systems, which are critical UK infrastructure. The potential impact of implementing this incorrectly is sky-high.” She added that the £415,000 limit could also “significantly affect” fintech investment in the UK, which would become the only country with such rules. A PSR spokesperson said firms could choose to use “existing industry systems” and that Pay.UK would offer “the best solution longer term”.

Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky’s investment group is offering to buy shares in Royal Mail's parent company, International Distribution Services (IDS). EP Group has published its offer online and written to some 100,000 shareholders, including current and former Royal Mail staff, with the offer. EP Group needs the approval of 75% of IDS shareholders to take the postal service over, but already owns 27.5% of those shares. Leading asset managers own most of the other 72.5%, while Royal Mail staff own 5.5% collectively, having received 600 shares in the company at the time of its privatisation in 2013. The IDS board has recommended shareholders accept EP Group’s 370p per share offer. However, even if Kretinsky gets enough sellers to pursue the deal, the Government may still block the deal on national security and/or public interest grounds as Kretinsky is a foreign national, and because of Royal Mail’s importance to the UK infrastructure. The mood music from the current Government and senior Labour party politicians though, is that they are not opposed to the deal provided Royal Mail continues its Universal Service Obligations on mail deliveries and that the firm is not broken up. Advisers working on the controversial takeover of Royal Mail's parent company are in line for a fee bonanza worth more than £130m.

EDF has been named the worst energy provider in Britain for customer service by Citizens Advice after average call waiting times rose from just under a minute last year, to more than five minutes in the three months to March this year. Out of all the domestic energy suppliers, EDF ranked last, scoring just two stars for service. Recently, several EDF customers were wrongly billed tens of thousands of pounds. However, Citizens Advice said energy firms’ customer service had fallen across the board to an all time low, with suppliers “failing to give their customers proper support”.

Post Office news: Seema Misra, a former Royal Mail sub-postmistress who was wrongly jailed while pregnant has rejected an apology from an ex-Fujitsu engineer whose evidence helped convict her, telling the BBC a statement from Gareth Jenkins was "too little, too late". At the inquiry into the Post Office Horizon scandal yesterday, she said she wanted to know "why on Earth he did what he did," in failing to tell the court about a bug in the software that could have undermined the case against her at her 2010 trial. Misra’s conviction was quashed in 2021. The Post Office wrongly prosecuted about 700 sub-postmasters between 1999 and 2015 for theft and fraud on the basis of incorrect data from their IT system. Meanwhile, Post Office CFO Alisdair Cameron has quit his role at the scandal-hit company after more than a year’s absence on sick leave. He has spent almost a decade at the company, including serving under former boss Paula Vennells, and the ongoing inquiry heard he clashed with Post Office CEO Nick Read, who took over from Vennelles. It was said Read tried to “get rid” of him but had no grounds on which to do so. When he was giving evidence to the inquiry, Cameron claimed the “original sin” of the Post Office was that “our culture, self-absorbed and defensive, stopped us from dealing with postmasters in a straightforward and acceptable way”. He said he was “sorry that I accepted that Horizon was working effectively too easily at the time, and for the time that it took us to shift focus from the commercial performance of the business to the experience of postmasters”. The Post Office said in a statement: “We would like to thank Alisdair for his significant contribution to [the] Post Office over almost a decade and wish him the very best”.

Aer Lingus pilots have begun industrial action in an ongoing dispute with the airline over pay. Members of the Irish Air Line Pilot's Association (IALPA) are seeking a 24% pay rise, and began an indefinite work-to-rule at midnight and an eight-hour strike is planned for Saturday. Their action has led to 270 fights being cancelled. Aer Lingus called on IALPA to "consider the damage that its continued industrial action is inflicting upon passengers, the company and the Irish economy,” while IALPA president Capt Mark Tighe told the BBC Aer Lingus management “have refused to see the reasonableness of our accumulative inflationary pay claim”.

Airbus, the world’s biggest plane maker, has warned it is facing a shortage of new aircraft and engine parts due to “persistent specific supply chain issues”. The firm says it has been forced to cut the number of aircraft it expects to ship this year from 800 to 770, 50 fewer than it delivered last year. Airbus CEO Guillaume Faury said engine delays were becoming a “significant issue” in 2024 and that profits would take a hit this year as a result. Seats and other cabin parts are in particularly short supply, he added.

AO World has posted an adjusted pretax profit of £34m for the 12 months to the end of March, beating estimates for a £28-33m profit. The British online electrical retailer also says it anticipates growth of 6% this year for its sales of washing machines, fridge freezers, cookers, TVs, laptops and mobile phones.

Liontrust Asset Management has reported a 23% drop in annual profit this morning, with accounts showing net outflows of £6.1bn. "We have started to see signs of a change in investor sentiment and this is likely to move significantly when more central banks reduce interest rates and there is greater political and fiscal certainty in the UK," it said in a statement published by Reuters.

Phoenix Group Holdings plans to explore a potential sale of its SunLife insurance business, it says, having received a number of initial expressions of interest from third parties.

Studio Ramsay, the TV production company behind celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay’s Food Stars and Kitchen Nightmares programmes has posted a turnover of £43.1m for 2022/23 newly filed accounts with Companies House show. Ramsey’s business also posted a pre-tax profit of £5.6m for the period. In the previous year, Studio Ramsay posted a turnover of £7m and a pre-tax profit of £226,459.

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