Business & Tech
The latest stories from independent business & tech media.
Interview: How Absolut is using art to redefine festival sponsorship
For most festivalgoers, Tomorrowland is about the music, but for brands, it also poses as an opportunity to earn attention from more than 400,000 visitors at one of the world's most visually creative festivals.
Postgres pioneer credits Oracle with helping his database take over the world
Big Red's acquisition of MySQL sent users running toward the open source alternative, says Michael Stonebraker
Fairstone acquires Belfast wealth manager with £135m AUM
Fairstone has expanded its presence in Northern Ireland with the acquisition of Belfast-based investment management firm Ferguson Hill Asset Management.
One To Watch - HappyRobot on building voice AI for enterprise agents
HappyRobot CEO Pablo Palafox discusses building its own voice AI models and the company's growth beyond logistics.
Monzo deploys backup bank in face of outage
Monzo says it has activated its independent backup bank after thousands of customers reported issues with accessing its app. The issue was resolved on Wednesday afternoon.
Adviser demand for bonds builds ahead of pension IHT changes
Adviser recommendations for onshore and international bonds could shift further as firms prepare for pension funds to come into the inheritance tax net from April 2027, according to Defaqto data.
More than half of Americans now view AI negatively
Concern continues to climb for adults under 30, as people fear being replaced by AI
ISS spacewalkers discover there's no such thing as a quick antenna job
Astronauts removed broken hardware but will have to return for more orbital DIY
Claire Trott: Pension tax relief is not all it seems
The announcement on 30 October 2024 that unused pension funds will form part of an estate for inheritance tax calculations from April 2027 prompted a great deal of speculation about whether people would cease pension contributions in favour of other wrappers. This was mainly due
Comcast gives its Wi-Fi motion detector a security makeover
Rebranded feature promises household alerts without video, but mind the small print
GitHub's latest outage blamed on policy error
The "cascade" of failures occurred just as Cursor launched its alternative code hosting platform.
AJ Bell Gilt MPS tops £100m in assets
AJ Bell Investments’ Gilt MPS has surpassed £100m in customer assets, highlighting growing adviser demand for short-dated government bonds as a tax-efficient alternative to cash.
Semi-liquid funds tipped to drive private markets growth
Semi-liquid funds are expected to become an increasingly important route into private markets for retail and high-net-worth investors, with fund managers forecasting a sharp increase in launches over the next three years.
ASA bans Boots promotion for causing ‘unnecessary disappointment’
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has banned promotional offer from Boots for a free No7 lotion due to concerns over stock availability causing participants “unnecessary disappointment”.
US Treasury buybacks calm long-end bond market but fiscal risks remain
The US Treasury’s decision to increase its purchases of longer-dated government bonds has eased pressure on the long end of the market, but investors continue to face structural concerns around government debt, inflation and the outlook for interest rates.
Wealth managers shift towards lower equity exposure, FCA finds
Wealth managers reduced the proportion of clients in the highest-equity portfolios during 2024/25, with allocations to portfolios holding 80%-100% equities falling as exposure to more balanced portfolios increased, according to the FCA.
Scotland's AI Growth Zone gets a wee £300M power-up
DataVita secures funding to expand datacenter capacity, while Dell brings some desks
Kristy Barr: Why the VCT conversation is worth having early this year
Ahead of every venture capital trust (VCT) season, advisers ask us a version of the same question: is this still the right conversation to be having with clients? Following the changes announced in last year's Autumn Budget, we have been asked it a little more
Half of IFA firms earn 2% or less on cash reserves
More than half of UK IFA firms earned 2% or less on their cash reserves over the past year, with almost half holding most or all of their cash in business current accounts, research has found. A quarterly poll of UK IFA and wealth management
SAP consultant job ads overshoot final offers by up to 12%, recruiter claims
Both sides apparently start high then price in the inevitable haggle
Raspberry Pi gets jiggy with batch CM5 provisioning
Clamp, flash, repeat – no separate IO board or host computer required
GitHub blames 8-hour outage on autoscaling fail and VS Code retry storm
Load balancers buckled after a monitoring blind spot allowed traffic to spiral
Loewe launches concept store at Harrods
German luxury technology brand Loewe has opened a new concept store at Harrods, London.
Robert Dyas launches on Deliveroo in first on-demand delivery move
Robert Dyas has launched on Deliveroo through an exclusive partnership, marking its first move into on-demand delivery. The tie-up will give customers access to around 6,000 Robert Dyas products across homeware, electricals, DIY, garden and small appliances through the delivery…
Toolstation trials collection lockers at Battersea store
Toolstation has partnered with eLocker to install 17 collection lockers outside its Toolstation Go store in Battersea.
Tesco unveils KPOP Demon Hunters themed cafes
KPOP Demon Hunters is taking over Tesco’s six of the supermarket’s cafes this summer. The cafes include Coventry, Watford, St Helens, York, Ashby De La Zouch and Hatfield.
Puma’s vice president of global sports marketing steps down
Johan Adamsson, vice president of global sports marketing and sports licensing at Puma has left the company for personal reasons. Adamsson has been at the firm for more than 25 years and will depart on August 31 2026.
Klarna shares dip on revised guidance
Shares in bu now, pay later giant Klarna took a dive after the company reduced its guidance for revenue and transaction income over the coming year.
