Business

HSBC customers have been left without online and mobile banking services on Black Friday. Shortly before nine o’clock on Friday the bank said it is investigating the issue “as a matter of urgency” and apologised to customers. It’s working to restore mobile and online banking service, HSBC said, including authorising online card purchases via the

John Lewis is opening health clinics in some stores as it tries to boost flagging sales. Shoppers will be able to get full-body checks for potential health issues, as well as tests for things such as vitamin deficiencies and hormone imbalances. It’s setting them up with Randox Health and appointments are already bookable for next

A mental fitness app for men co-founded by Bear Grylls, the British adventurer, has raised £2.5m in seed funding from backers including venture capital funds and prominent angel investors. Sky News understands that Mettle, which launched earlier this week, has secured financial backing that will support aid a sizeable marketing campaign during the coming weeks.

HMV has reopened the doors to its flagship Oxford Street store after it was closed down for four years. The entertainment chain first opened the central London store 102 years ago, but was forced to shut it when it fell into administration. Now, in what owner Doug Putman called a “great moment” in the chain’s

Nissan has announced plans to build new electric versions of its popular Juke and Qashqai models at its Sunderland plant. All models made at the site will be entirely electric cars and a battery making plant, a so-called gigafactory, will also be built as part of an overall £3bn investment in the transition away from

Amazon workers in the UK are to go on strike today to coincide with Black Friday – one of the company’s busiest shopping days of the year. More than 1,000 staff at the firm’s warehouse in Coventry are expected to take part in the walkout, the GMB union said, amid a long-running dispute over pay

Women in their 30s are on average £4,000 a year worse off than they were in 2010, new figures show. Data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) shows the median full-time salary for those aged 30 to 39 has dropped from £37,899 in April 2010 to £33,740 in April 2023 – leaving them, on

Consumer confidence has improved in recent weeks as shoppers look to “loosen their purse strings”, according to a closely watched survey. GfK, which carried out the poll, said there were signs buyers were feeling more confident, but also cautioned that cost of living pressures remained an important limiting factor on household spending. The research group

Europe’s biggest bank has credited rising interest rates for a 240% lift to its latest quarterly profits but expressed worries about the UK’s economic outlook. HSBC, which is London based and listed but largely Asia-focused, said that pre-tax profits for its July to September third quarter came in at $7.7bn (£6.4bn). Higher interest rates, on

The private equity investor that owns Footasylum is in pole position to buy The Body Shop, the ethical cosmetics chain founded by Dame Anita Roddick and her husband Gordon nearly 50 years ago. Sky News has learnt that Aurelius Group is in exclusive negotiations to buy the British-based chain, which was put up for sale

A backbench Conservative MP is demanding a government probe into the Barclay family’s use of Middle East-based financing to regain control of The Daily Telegraph. Sky News has learnt that Danny Kruger, the MP for Devizes, urged the culture secretary Lucy Frazer to issue a Public Interest Intervention Notice (PIIN) into the funding behind the

ASOS, the London-listed online fashion retailer, is exploring a sale of the TopShop brand it bought from the wreckage of Sir Philip Green’s collapsed retail empire less than three years ago. Sky News has learnt that ASOS, which will publish its delayed full-year results next week, is at the early stages of a process that

Former crypto tycoon Sam Bankman-Fried has admitted he made “mistakes” in how he ran his collapsed FTX exchange – but told a court he did not steal from its customers. The 31-year-old also acknowledged a “lot of people got hurt” when the company went bankrupt as he testified in open court in his fraud case

The independent review into the closure of Nigel Farage’s Coutts account and the discussion of his banking with a journalist by the head of the bank has found “a number of shortcomings” in the closure process. But law firm Travers Smith, who were commissioned by the board of NatWest to conduct the review, said the

An independent review into the closure of Nigel Farage’s Coutts account and the discussion of his banking with a journalist by the head of the bank has found “a number of shortcomings” in the closure process. But law firm Travers Smith, which was commissioned by the board of NatWest to conduct the review, said the