THE DAILY BRIEFING
DEFICIT RISES Britain’s trade deficit climbed to £8.9bn in the second quarter of 2017, up £100m from the previous three months. The nation exported £200m more goods but imported an extra £300m.
TELECOMS FINE The Information Commissioner’s Office has fined
TalkTalk £100,000 after the telecoms giant put personal data from 21,000 customers at risk. A probe found data protection laws were broken after ‘rogue’ staff from IT firm Wipro, working with TalkTalk, accessed data via an online company portal.
PROFIT UP Business bank Aldermore made a £78m profit in the first half of the year, up 32pc from the same period in 2017. Loans to customers climbed 8.4pc to £8.1bn.
EXPANSION SUCCEEDS Ramping up its store expansion boosted
Card Factory, as sales rose 6.7pc in the six months to the end of July, while sales across stores open for more than a year surged 3.1pc.
NEW CHAIRMAN Energy firm Premier Oil has appointed a nonexecutive chairman, Roy Franklin, to replace Mike Welton, who leaves after eight years in September.
OFCOM BACKING A review of BT’s cables and network arm, Open
reach, has found the embattled firm has improved its services in the past year. Telecoms watchdog Ofcom has tracked Openreach’s delivery of fibre broadband to businesses and said it passed five of six measures.
BANKING BOSS Former Citi banker Barry Rodrigues has been appointed boss of Barclaycard’s international arm.
NEWSROOM CONTRACT Software firm Scisys has won a £2.3m contract to update a major German broadcaster’s newsroom systems.
SATELLITE SHIFT David Williams has stepped down as chief of satellite firm Avanti Communications.
VEGAS VETO The finance boss of gambling firm GAN, Desmond Glass, has left after refusing to move to Las Vegas.
SINGAPORE DEAL AIM-listed firm StatPro Group has secured a contract to move computer systems at Singapore’s central bank over to the cloud.
PRETTY PICTURE British video and photography equipment maker Vitec Group has posted a profits boost of 46pc, to £16.4m, for the six months to June 30.