The Artesian blog takes a look at the business headlines, For personalised daily news, contact Artesian
Lloyds makes H1 loss as bad debts hit £13 bln - Lloyds Banking Group (LLOY.L) sank to a 4 billion pounds loss in the first-half of the year as it was hit by a surge in bad debts from the HBOS business it bought earlier this year.
Lloyds said on Wednesday its impairment losses in the six months to the end of June jumped to 13.4 billion pounds, more than five times the 2.5 billion pounds a year ago and up from 12.4 billion in the previous six months. (full story)
Wages up for low-paid apprentices - The minimum pay rate for apprentices has risen from £80 to £95 a week, after the numbers of young people joining the schemes dipped.
The TUC welcomed the change in the pay levels, from 1 August, with young women likely to benefit the most. (full story)
Online retailers point to new phase for Facebook - A new wave of sophisticated e-commerce applications is appearing on Facebook, a sign that the world’s largest social network could rapidly emerge as a big destination for online shopping.
1-800-Flowers, the US floral gift retailer and distributor, last week opened its “Facebook storefront”, an application running on Facebook’s fast-growing platform where users can purchase and send flowers. (full story)
Orange dongle deal kickstarts mobile broadband price war - Orange has kicked off a price war in the mobile broadband market after slashing the monthly cost of its base package to less than £5 and capping the penalty charges users face for exceeding their download limit.
Mobile broadband has become a key growth driver for mobile phone companies that can use 3G networks to offer subscribers internet access on the move. Although mobile broadband was initially slow to take off, usage has exploded over the past eighteen months as prices have come down. (full story)
British economy edges slowly towards an upturn - The British economy continued its painfully slow progress towards recovery with a further flow of modestly encouraging news yesterday. The release of the latest data on the jobs market, the construction sector, and on consumer confidence showed a further improvement, albeit from low bases and with a mixed pattern of progress on the disastrously bad trend seen over the recession.
The Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply's (CIPS) latest survey of sentiment in the building trade, which comprises around 6 per cent of the economy, showed a modest improvement in levels of optimism. (full story)
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