RBS, Metro Bank, Snapchat, celebrity influencers: your commercial news round-up
updated on 24 October 2019
More reliable than Boris Johnson’s Brexit timetable, our weekly round-up of the commercial news stories you need to know about can help you to improve your commercial awareness and keep up to date with the business world. Take a look at the below articles for an immediate insight into what’s been going on this week, and don’t forget to head to our commercial awareness hub for more.
- The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has reported a loss this quarter due to the pay out of payment protection insurance (PPI) claims over recent months. The bank posted a pre-tax loss of £8 million from July to September after taking a £900 million hit for PPI. This result is in stark contrast to this time last year when RBS reported a £961 million profit.
- In more bad news for banks, Metro Bank recorded a £3.6 million loss for the first nine months of the year. The bank has been struck by an accounting scandal and billions of pounds worth of customer withdrawals, causing it to lose nearly 90% of its value this year. Despite having underestimated the risk level of some of its commercial loans, the bank managed to scrape back £528 million by offering better rates for its fixed-term deposits.
- You might have thought that Snapchat has been dying out since Instagram’s Stories feature came out, but the social media company beat expectations by signing up 7 million new users and boasting a revenue increase of 50% in the third quarter of 2018 to this year. Last month, the company announced a new season of Snap Originals – made-for-mobile TV shows created by the brand.
- The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has clamped down on celebrity influencers’ promotion of diet products, banning Instagram posts of three TV stars – Katie Price, Lauren Goodger and Georgia Harris – which showed weight loss drinks and sweets. The ASA had concerns that some of the photos had been artificially modified and that they created the impression that it was “necessary or advisable” for the celebrities’ followers to use the products to suppress their appetites.
- An estimated 85,000 jobs in the retail industry have been lost this year according to calculations by the British Retail Consortium, which has called on the government to overhaul its high street policies. This is the 15th year in a row that jobs in this sector have declined.
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