Wednesday newspaper round-up: Identity theft, Vodafone/OpenReach, Provident Financial
Eric Daniels, the chief executive of Lloyds Bank when it was bailed out with £20bn of taxpayer money during the 2008 financial crisis, is suing the bank for hundreds of thousands of pounds in disputed bonuses. Daniels, who was heavily criticised by politicians during his tenure at Lloyds, has filed a legal claim to try to collect some of his bonus payments that were withheld by the bank. – Guardian
Identity theft has reached epidemic levels in the UK, with incidents of this type of fraud running at almost 500 a day, according to the latest figures. During the first six months of this year there were a record 89,000 cases of identity fraud, which typically involves criminals pretending to be an individual in order to steal their money, buy items or take out a loan or car insurance in their name. – Guardian
Vodafone is in talks with BT’s network subsidiary Openreach about a groundbreaking joint investment in new ultrafast fibre-optic broadband for British cities. The two companies are in what are described by industry sources as “early but serious” discussions about combining their financial strength to build large-scale new infrastructure to replace ageing copper telephone lines. – Telegraph
Job opportunities are diminishing, with employers’ plans to hire falling to their lowest level in a year as the economic outlook darkens. More companies expect the economy to worsen over the next three months than get better, meaning they are far less likely to recruit new staff, according to data from the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC). - Telegraph
The Bank of England should shut down its £115 billion cheap funding scheme for high-street lenders because it has served its purpose and is now undermining policy, a top economist has said. Simon Ward, chief economist at Janus Henderson, said that the term funding scheme (TFS) should be closed because it makes the Bank look as though it “is pursuing contradictory policies”. He added that the scheme was confusing monetary policy, which follows criticism that it was also stoking a credit bubble. – The Times
Hedge funds were cheering as Provident Financial’s share price sank to its lowest level in more than two decades. AQR, Systematica and Lansdowne Partners were among those sitting on a paper profit of about £150 million, according to IHS Markit, the financial data company. Short interest, a proxy for shareholders betting on a fall in the share price, had increased to 7.7 per cent of the shares outstanding at the start of the week. – The Times