Business

Bitcoin has slipped below the $70,000 mark, erasing the gains made after Donald Trump’s return to the White House, as weakening investor demand and regulatory uncertainty weigh on the world’s largest cryptocurrency. The digital asset fell to around $65,600 on Thursday, its lowest level since November 2024, amid a combination of hawkish signals from the US Federal Reserve, a slowdown in institutional buying and continued delays in crypto regulation. Bitcoin had rallied sharply following Trump’s...

NatWest has announced plans to dramatically expand its Accelerator community, with an ambition to support 50,000 entrepreneurs across the UK in 2026 – a five-fold increase on the target it set for 2025. The move follows a standout year for the programme, during which the bank supported around 12,000 founders. That figure exceeds the total number of entrepreneurs the Accelerator had backed over the previous decade combined, highlighting the rapid acceleration in both scale and...

An award-winning tradesperson has announced plans to leave the UK for Switzerland, warning that rising employment taxes, shrinking apprenticeship support and mounting red tape are driving skilled workers and small business owners overseas. Martin Daly, founder of Motherwell-based MD Builders and recently crowned Screwfix Top Tradesperson for 2025, said changes introduced in Labour’s first Budget were the final catalyst behind his decision to relocate after years of building his business in the UK. Daly, 30,...

Jason Goldberg Winnipeg has built a career around clarity. In a field known for complexity, he has focused on making big ideas work in the real world. Not with noise or headlines, but with structure, discipline, and long-term thinking. Based in Winnipeg, Jason is a partner at MLT Aikins, the largest law firm in Manitoba and Western Canada. His work sits at the intersection of tax law, business strategy, and transition planning. Over time, he...

Chinese state-owned carmaker Chery is pressing ahead with its rapid UK expansion by launching a fourth brand in the British market, underlining its ambition to become a long-term player in one of Europe’s most competitive automotive landscapes. The group confirmed it will introduce vehicles under the Lepas brand, a new line focused on battery-electric and hybrid SUVs aimed at younger families. While Lepas is being developed primarily with Europe in mind, the UK will be...

The UK’s data protection watchdog has fined the owner of image-sharing platform Imgur nearly £250,000 after finding serious failures in how the site handled children’s personal data. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has imposed a £247,590 penalty on MediaLab.AI, Inc, concluding that the company allowed children to access Imgur for years without putting in place even basic age-checking safeguards required under UK data protection law. Following a long-running investigation, the regulator found that MediaLab failed...

Investment in UK film production hit a record £2.8bn last year, driven overwhelmingly by Hollywood studios and global streaming platforms, according to new figures from the British Film Institute (BFI). However, industry leaders are warning that growth is likely to slow in 2026 as Netflix shifts production back to the United States amid political pressure and plans for a blockbuster acquisition. The BFI said that 91 per cent of the £2.78bn spent on UK film...

Swish is a Swedish electronic payment solution. It has now introduced a joint blocking feature to limit and prevent fraud. The most popular electronic payment service in Sweden, Swish, has now been granted the right to introduce a joint blocking feature. The aim of the joint blocking function is to prevent fraud, and it will allow banks to block users from the entire Swish system. This makes it much more difficult for fraudsters to exploit...

It’s not the model. It’s not the team. It’s the unit economics. Venture capital poured a record $202 billion into AI startups in 2025, capturing half of all global funding. Yet the math remains brutal: 90% of AI companies will fail, a rate significantly higher than the 70% seen in traditional tech startups. According to Alexander Kopylkov, a venture capital investor focused on long-term business fundamentals, this failure rate is not driven by lack of...

Cutting net migration to zero would deliver a short-term boost to living standards but ultimately prove “fiscally unsustainable”, leaving the UK economy smaller, public finances weaker and the deficit permanently higher, according to new analysis. The warning comes from the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR), which said a zero net migration policy would shrink the economy by 3.6 per cent by 2040 and reduce the workforce by around 2.5 million people compared...