The Money’s There. The Nerve Isn’t

Britain won't back Britain

Britain spent Wednesday asking, from two directions, why the country's own money won't back the country. Barratt Redrow — its shares down almost 60% in five years to a decade low — handed £386m back to shareholders in a buyback while pleading with incoming PM Andy Burnham to cut the housing taxes it blames for stalled building; confidence in the share price, caution about everything else. The bigger stall sat in the City: three years after pension funds stood at Mansion House and pledged £50bn for British start-ups, they've invested £1.6bn — 0.6% against a 5% target, appetite going backwards, only four of eleven signatories now seeing client demand, down from seven. Two industries, one confession: the money exists, the nerve doesn't.

Nobody's minding your money but you

For everyone else, the theme was that no one's minding your money but you. Buy now, pay later came under FCA rules on Wednesday, a £3bn reckoning the giants are cheering because the £1.4bn compliance bill is a moat — one that could shut out up to 30% of nearly 11m users and wave the high-street banks back in. Further down the ladder, 1.2m pensioners are missing pension credit worth £3,900 a year — up to £13,000 once housing and council-tax help stack — leaving £2.5bn the Treasury already set aside unclaimed. And Bitcoin, down 50% from its $126,128 peak, served the calmest lesson: against past falls of 77% to 93%, this is its mildest winter yet. Panic is the only real loss.

From battered house builders to unclaimed pension credit, Wednesday's lesson was the same: the money's rarely the problem. To the rest of the issue. — M.B.

Five years and nearly five prime ministers after the government first promised to rein it in, buy now, pay later finally meets its regulator. From today, the £13bn sector falls under the Financial Conduct Authority — a £3bn reckoning its biggest names are, oddly, toasting rather than fighting. The catch is who actually pays. The bill lands hardest on the small fintechs and the shoppers about to be turned away at the checkout, while the giants and the high-street banks eye a suddenly tidier market.

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Around 1.2 million pensioners are missing out on pension credit — a benefit worth £3,900 a year that most are entitled to and never claim. Add the housing and council tax help it can trigger, and the poorest could be leaving as much as £13,000 a year on the table. It is, bleakly, free money going begging — and a new report warns it is pushing hundreds of thousands into poverty.

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Barratt Redrow (LON: BDEV) shares have lost nearly 60% of their value in five years, sinking to a decade low — and this week the FTSE 100 housebuilder did two contradictory things at once. In the same update it promised £386m back to shareholders while leaning on prime-minister-in-waiting Andy Burnham to cut the taxes it blames for throttling housebuilding. It is an awkward split-screen: a company confident enough to buy its own stock, yet convinced it cannot build its way out of trouble without help from Westminster. The market, so far, is unconvinced.

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There's a particular comedy in watching buy now, pay later's disruptors cheer the rulebook that hands their market back to the banks they set out to beat. Regulation arrived dressed as shopper protection; it may leave dressed as a bank. The checkout, it turns out, always belonged to whoever could afford the compliance department. — M.B.