Tuesday newspaper round-up: Food prices, Libya, Pearson...

1st Mar 2011 06:37

The City watchdog plans to investigate the way in which banks' retail sales forces are rewarded amid fears that some clients are being pushed to buy "inappropriate" products.Lord Turner of Ecchinswell, chairman of the Financial Services Authority, told The Times that he intended to investigate pay structures governing in-house sales staff to assess whether they encouraged "mis-selling".The price of food is rising far more quickly in Britain than in other leading nations as supermarket giants attempt to boost margins, researchers from a leading global bank say. Analysts at UBS said that of seven leading economies, Britain had the highest rate of food price inflation. The report said that the situation was "anomalous" and that the UK supermarkets might come under political pressure, or face a competition probe, the Times reports.The Pentagon is deploying naval and air forces around Libya as the US and UK governments consider tougher measures to force Muammer Gaddafi from power, including the possible establishment of a no-fly zone. "We must not tolerate this regime using military force against its own people," David Cameron, UK prime minister, said. "In that context I have asked the Ministry of Defence and the Chief of the Defence Staff to work with our allies on plans for a military no-fly zone," the FT reports.The US economy has already begun to hit capacity constraints in some industries as business orders reach the highest level since the start of the Reagan boom in the early 1980s. The Chicago purchasing managers index (PMI) for the Mid-West region showed business optimism touched a 13-year high in February, while the new orders component was the highest since December 1983, the Telegraph reports.Citigroup has come under attack from a prominent analyst and accountancy experts for failing to disclose regulatory criticism of the bank's valuation of troubled securities during the financial crisis. Newly released documents show that on February 14 2008, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, one of Citi's main regulators, expressed concerns about the way Citi valued mortgage-backed securities, the FT reports.HSBC launched a thinly-veiled attack on the Government's banking levy yesterday, saying it would have cost the company $600m (£370m) last year - with two-thirds of the bill related to businesses based outside the UK. The bank, which is conducting one of its regular reviews into whether it should continue to be headquartered in Britain, said the Government was entitled to impose a levy after bailing out a number of institutions but pointed out that HSBC had not taken any money from the state, the Independent reports. Pearson, the owner of the Financial Times and Penguin, yesterday hit out at Apple's controversial changes to its subscription policy, slamming its plans to block sharing of customer data. Dame Marjorie Scardino, chief executive of Pearson, said she was "unclear" how Apple's plan to take a 30% cut of magazine and newspaper subscriptions would work, adding: "We are still talking to them," the Independent reports.Customer complaints about banks, insurers and other financial companies have risen by 15% in the last six months, according to new figures published by the Financial Ombudsman Service. Between July and December last year the Ombudsman received almost 100,000 complaints - and more than half of these were about our five biggest high street banks. The Lloyds Banking group received the most complaints - a total of 22,181 during this six month period - which equates to almost 120 complaints a day about our largest bank. However, this was marginally down on the number of complaints received in the first half of 2010, the Telegraph reports.TalkTalk has tried to draw a line under a customer service debacle by paying £2.5m in compensation to tens of thousands of customers who were incorrectly billed. The UK's second-largest broadband provider was widely criticised by consumer groups after a problem with its billing platform meant that thousands of customers received demands for payment despite cancelling contracts months earlier, the Times reports.Britain's insurers are braced for a sex discrimination ruling by the European courts that could drive up the cost of women's car insurance and hit retirement payouts for men. The European Court of Justice is expected to rule today on whether to make it illegal for insurers to discriminate in favour of either sex for car insurance, life cover and annuity rates. The judgment marks the culmination of a legal challenge to the rights of insurers to opt out of gender discrimination rules, the Times reports.