Author: Arabian Media staff

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.UK fintech Wise plans to switch its primary listing to New York in an attempt to attract more investors and boost its valuation, dealing a fresh blow to the London market.The company, which listed to great fanfare in London in 2021 at an almost £9bn valuation, said the move would increase its appeal to US investors and enhance its expansion plans in the world’s biggest economy.Announcing the decision on Thursday, Wise said: “We believe the addition of a primary US listing would…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.More than a quarter of homecare contracts offered by English local authorities do not cover the cost of employing staff on the minimum wage, according to an industry body that said the practices amounted to “state-sponsored exploitation”. The Homecare Association, which represents 2,200 providers across the UK, said 27 per cent of local authorities were paying hourly rates below £22.71, the bare minimum it says is needed to cover statutory employment costs such as wages, training and travel time. This left “less than…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.UK inflation was overstated by 0.1 percentage points in April owing to an error in tax figures provided by a government department, the Office for National Statistics said on Thursday.Annual inflation was 3.4 per cent, according to the corrected data, rather than the 3.5 per cent initially estimated.The ONS said an error had been identified “in an extract of the licensed vehicles data provided . . . by the Department for Transport, used to calculate the April 2025 Vehicle Excise Duty component of consumer prices inflation”.It…

Hello everyone, this is Cissy from Hong Kong. This week, the Hong Kong police are on high alert again as Wednesday marked the 36th anniversary of Beijing’s bloody crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in and around Tiananmen Square in the Chinese capital.Although public mourning over the tragedy has diminished since the implementation of the National Security Law in 2020, some pro-democracy individuals still have been trying in their own ways to commemorate those who were killed. For example, one shop was selling white candles — like those traditionally used for candlelight vigils to mark the anniversary — for HK$6.40 each. Some…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Lagos, Nigeria’s economic capital, is home to 23 of the country’s 28 companies in this year’s Financial Times ranking of the fastest-growing African companies.Odunayo Eweniyi, co-founder of fintech start-up PiggyVest, says companies flock to Lagos in part because of its size. The rapidly growing metropolis is one of the biggest cities in the world and the largest in sub-Saharan Africa, with some estimates putting its population at 20mn, accounting for 10 per cent of Nigeria’s total.“If you’re big in Lagos, then you’re…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Lex Greensill, the Australian financier, is set to make his first public courtroom appearance since his eponymous lending company collapsed when he testifies in a high-stakes London court case brought by a Credit Suisse fund against SoftBank.The fund claims SoftBank “coordinated” with Lex Greensill’s company at the expense of the bank’s investors, who lost $440mn through assets backed by Greensill Limited, a subsidiary of Greensill Capital that is in liquidation and is also a defendant.Lex Greensill is due to appear as a…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.It is a crowded field for the many Nigerian fintech start-ups competing for a slice of the market in Africa’s most populous nation, making it difficult to stand out.But that is not the case with PalmPay, the mobile payment app operator that launched in 2019 with a $40mn seed funding round led by Chinese mobile phone manufacturer Transsion, the largest for an African start-up to date.Two years later, that was followed by a further $100mn funding round, putting it on course to…

Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the UK energy myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.Ministers are considering funding energy bill discounts for UK heat pump owners as they try to get more households to install the devices to help cut carbon emissions. Plans are being debated for a scheme under which households with heat pumps would not have to pay “green levies” on the electricity they use to run them, according to government and industry sources. Replacing gas-fired boilers with heat pumps is considered key to Britain’s climate goals but households only installed about 60,000 last year, well…

This article is an on-site version of our Europe Express newsletter. Premium subscribers can sign up here to get the newsletter delivered every weekday and fortnightly on Saturday morning. Standard subscribers can upgrade to Premium here, or explore all FT newslettersGood morning. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz runs the White House gauntlet with US President Donald Trump today, with his fellow EU leaders hoping for smiles and backslaps, not finger-wagging and Berlin-bashing.Today, I explain what Nato defence ministers will discuss as part of the alliance’s big-money rearmament push, before Moldova’s prime minister tells me how their push to gain energy independence…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.This article is an on-site version of our Unhedged newsletter. Premium subscribers can sign up here to get the newsletter delivered every weekday. Standard subscribers can upgrade to Premium here, or explore all FT newslettersSoft ADP payrolls data and a soggy ISM services report released yesterday sent the 10-year yield down sharply. Is a slowdown imminent? President Donald Trump seems to suspect so: he renewed his calls for Fed chair Jay “too late” Powell to lower interest rates. The stakes for Friday’s…