The second annual UK trade mission to Empire FinTech Week, taking place from 16-20 of April, offers UK FinTechs the opportunity to:

• showcase their expertise to the US market
• engage with US regulators
• gain valuable insight into overcoming barriers to doing business overseas

Recruitment ran across the whole of the UK in February 2018, focusing on advanced UK FinTechs actively entering the US market. A total of 134 applications were received from market-ready UK FinTech companies.

Her Majesty’s Consul General in New York and Trade Commissioner for North America, Antony Phillipson, said of the mission:

After an extremely competitive application process for a trade mission to the United States, we’re incredibly pleased to be showcasing such a strong representation of British innovation.

The quality of the delegation reconfirms the strength of the UK tech ecosystem and the importance of these transatlantic programmes.

The 2018 Mission to Empire FinTech Week will comprise of a pre-mission briefing in London in March, full access to the Empire Startups FinTech Conference in New York on 18 April, as well as regulatory discussions with experts and US regulators.

The week will culminate in a delegate showcase to the wider FinTech community at Barclays Rise New York on Friday, 20th April.

Founder of Empire Startups, Jon Zanoff, said of hosting the delegation:

Empire FinTech Week in New York will unite the global FinTech ecosystems and truly promote transatlantic innovation.

As the week will highlight the best and the brightest in FinTech, we couldn’t be more thrilled to welcome the UK delegation.

AccessPay is on a mission to develop powerful automation and AI tools that empower treasury and finance professionals to become more efficient and more secure.

ACORN machine’s mission is to enable financial institutions to make complex loans to entrepreneurs and SMEs by leveraging Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, and Operational Excellence. In the UK, the firm operates as OakNorth – a challenger bank founded in 2015 which has lent around £1 billion to date.

Bink uses its unique technology, Payment Linked Loyalty (PLL), to link consumers’ payment cards to their loyalty schemes. Payment Linked Loyalty is set to transform the loyalty experience – no need for plastic cards, membership IDs or paper coupons.

CUBE is an enterprise-scale RegTech solution that automates the entire regulatory change management process for multi-jurisdictional, multi-state financial institutions. Currently, 1.5 million staff in 180 countries are consuming regulatory intelligence, and managing regulatory change initiatives, powered by CUBE.

CurrencyCloud is a global payment platform that serves businesses by providing technologies that makes payments frictionless. CurrencyCloud places an emphasis on integration, and ensuring their payments engine fits neatly with the way their clients want to do business – rather than the other way around.

EValue is a market leader in the provision of digital, personal finance advice products and services. These products combine expert actuarial knowledge, pioneering asset modelling and risk management.

GoCardless Ltd offers a simple way for organisations to take bank to bank recurring payments however and whenever they want to across multiple markets with a single point of access.

LendInvest provides finance to property professionals, and a platform for individuals and institutions to invest in property backed loans. With $1 billion of lending capital, LendInvest operates Europe’s leading marketplace platform for property lending and investing and is one of the UK’s biggest non-bank mortgage lenders.

NorthRow, a Contego Solutions business, is the only comprehensive risk scoring platform that can handle complex fraud detection and compliance checks on people, ID documents and companies at high speed, delivered in a single easily-integrated API.

Pockit aims to be the world’s most inclusive digital banking product. Focusing on the unbanked and underbanked in the UK, Pockit offers a current account and enhanced functionality to upwards of 300,000 customers.

SalaryFinance is a new employee benefit out to save UK workers £4 billion per annum through lower interest repayments. SalaryFinance works with progressive employers to help their staff reduce their personal finance interest costs.

Shieldpay’s instant digital escrow facility eliminates payment fraud when transacting with somebody you don’t know. Its patent-pending technology is revolutionizing payments in classified marketplaces, real estate and mergers and acquisitions globally.

Starling Bank is a technology company with a banking license that is looking to disrupt finance at its core. With its first funding round of $70 million in January 2016, the company has launched the first mobile-only current account in the UK.

The ID Co.’s mission is to empower consumers with their bank identities and bank statement data. By leveraging banks as a strong proxy for trust and custodians of The ID Co.’s data the company opens up new opportunities to provide better experiences with reduced fraud, better compliance and more accurate decisions.

TradingHub provides state-of-the-art, metrics-based systems to identify, investigate and report market abuse and unauthorised or rogue trading activity.

The government’s new Office for Product Safety and Standards has teamed up with BSI, the UK’s National Standards Body, to launch the first government-backed Code of Practice (PAS 7100) for product safety recall in the UK.

The Code of Practice includes details on how a business can monitor the safety of products and plan for a recall, and how Market Surveillance Authorities such as local authority Trading Standards can support businesses in their monitoring of incidents and their implementation of corrective action.

The Code of Practice, developed by BSI, is the first major initiative for the new Office which was launched by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy in January. It follows a recommendation by the Working Group on Products Recalls and Safety to introduce such a Code to further strengthen the UK’s already tough product safety regime.

This was created with the assistance of leading retailers, consumer interest groups and industry bodies, including Tesco, Samsung Electronics, British Retail Consortium, Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents and the Association of Chief Trading Standards Officers.

Consumer Minister Andrew Griffiths said:

This new Code of Practice will support businesses in dealing with product safety issues swiftly and effectively, ensuring people can continue to buy secure in the knowledge there is an effective system in place if products need to be repaired or replaced.

Effective regulation is a key element of our Industrial Strategy, which is creating the conditions for businesses to succeed in the UK and to compete in the global economy.

Scott Steedman, Director of Standards at BSI said:

Public interest in product safety is higher than it has ever been and whilst consumer products generally perform without problems, there are times when products can become faulty and require a repair or recall.

The Code of Practice was created to ensure that corrective action by manufacturers is taken in a safe and systematic way. The launch of this guidance is an important step in ensuring even higher levels of product safety in the future.

The Code of Practice comes in two parts. The first part is focused on non-food consumer products and is intended for use by manufacturers, importers and distributors. It provides details on:

• how a business can plan for a recall, including establishing mechanisms to deal with any product safety issue identified
• managing a possible safety related product recall or other corrective action
• establishing mechanisms to monitor the safety of products
• investigating any potential product safety issue
• reviewing corrective action programmes to ensure that product safety responsibilities continue to be met.

The second part is aimed at regulators, specifically Market Surveillance Authorities including local authority Trading Standards. It details how they can carry out their role in ensuring businesses meet their responsibilities in respect of consumer product safety issues by:

• monitoring incidents and analysing data
• supporting businesses in the preparation of their ‘product safety incident plan’ (PSIP)
• supporting businesses in their monitoring of incidents and their implementation of appropriate corrective action.

PAS 7100 explains and applies existing legal requirements to be met by businesses or regulators. The following organisations were involved in the development of PAS 7100 as members of the steering group:

• Association of Manufacturers of Domestic Appliances (AMDEA)
• Association of Chief Trading Standards Officers (ACTSO)
• Baker & McKenzie LLP, British Retail Consortium (BRC)
• British Toy and Hobby Association (BTHA)
• BSI Consumer and Public Interest Network
• Chartered Trading Standards Institute (CTSI)
• Cooley (UK) LLP
• Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS)
• Electrical Safety First (ESF)
• London Fire Brigade; National Caravan Council (NCC)
• National Fire Chiefs Council (NFCO)
• Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (ROSPA)
• Samsung Electronics (UK) Ltd
• techUK
• TESCO
• Wilco Retail Limited

BSI is the business improvement company that enables organizations to turn standards of best practice into habits of excellence. For over a century BSI has championed what good looks like and driven best practice in organizations around the world. Working with over 86,000 clients across 193 countries, it is a truly international business with skills and experience across a number of sectors including automotive, aerospace, built environment, food, and healthcare. Through its expertise in Standards Development and Knowledge Solutions, Assurance and Professional Services, BSI improves business performance to help clients grow sustainably, manage risk and ultimately be more resilient.

The Office for Product Safety and Standards was set up in January 2018 in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, to enhance protections for consumers and the environment and to drive increased productivity, growth and business confidence. It will build national capacity within the UK’s product safety system and develop tools that support small business growth and implement the Industrial Strategy vision of simplifying regulation. This includes taking forward the work of the Regulatory Delivery directorate on Primary Authority, the Regulators’ Code and technical regulation.

2016 Women in Innovation award holder Rebecca Street.

The first industry-led Retail Sector Council was officially launched today (7 March 2018) by Retail Minister Andrew Griffiths and Richard Pennycook, Chairman of Fenwick, The Hut Group and Howden Joinery Group.

The Council will meet regularly with industry to discuss the challenges the sector faces. They will review how best retailers could adapt to changing consumer behaviour, the business environment and opportunities such as the development of new technologies to improve customer service, the chances to grow skills through a sector push on high-value training and ways to boost sector productivity and its economic health.

Senior management from Boots, Amazon and other renowned retailers will sit on the Council as well as the British Retail Consortium. Together, with government, they will provide expert advice to the sector and contribute to its future direction.

Retail Minister Andrew Griffiths said:

The UK’s retail sector is undergoing rapid structural changes with consumers increasingly favouring online shopping and rising operating costs for retailers.

Our new collaborative Retail Sector Council will bring government and industry together to look at how best to ensure the industry adapts to meet the changing demands of consumers.

Richard Pennycook, co-chair of the Retail Sector Council:

I am delighted to be co-chairing the first Retail Sector Council, which comes at a moment of unprecedented change for our sector. Retail is one of the largest private sector employers in the country, and the Council will provide strategic oversight of the challenges we are facing by seeking positive change and increased productivity.

“We will be working together with industry and government to deliver our vision for the future of retail.

The UK’s retail sector is a driving force in the economy and essential to our high streets, local and regional communities. The formation of the council follows other government action to create a Britain fit for the future including the government’s response to the independent Taylor Review, which ensures employment law and practices keep pace with the modern ways of working, and its ambitious Industrial Strategy which sets out a long term plan to boost the productivity and earning power of businesses and people throughout the UK.

In 2016, the retail sector added a gross value of £94.6 billion to the UK economy; the new Council will aim to address key sector issues including skills and increasing productivity.

Notes to editors

Retail Sector Council members:

• Andrew Griffiths, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, Minister for Small Business, Consumers and Corporate Responsibility, Co-Chair, Retail Council
• Richard Pennycook, Co-Chair, Retail Council, Chairman of Fenwick, The Hut Group and Howden Joinery Group and previously CEO of the Co-operative Group. Richard is also Chair of the British Retail Consortium and lead non-executive board member of the Department for Education
• Doug Gurr, UK Country Manager, Amazon
• Sir Charlie Mayfield, Chairman, John Lewis Partnership
• Elizabeth Fagan, Senior Vice President, Managing Director Boots UK & ROI
• Nick Beighton, CEO, ASOS
• Ursula Lidbetter, CEO, Lincolnshire Cooperative
• John Hannett, General Secretary, Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers
• Diane Savory, Chair, GFirst LEP
• Victoria Robertshaw, CEO, Keelham Farm Shop
• Helen Dickinson, CEO, British Retail Consortium
• James Lowman, CEO, Association of Convenience Stores

The Charity Commission, the independent regulator of charities in England and Wales, has opened a new statutory inquiry into The Great Generation (1120349). The inquiry was opened on 3 January 2018.

The charity operates in Brazil, India, Jordan, Sri Lanka and Uganda and works with individuals, schools and businesses to help achieve the millennium development goals, specifically poverty alleviation.

On 17 February 2017 the charity was included in a class inquiry which the Commission opened to examine charities that had repeatedly defaulted on their accounting obligations.

The charity submitted the outstanding documents to the Commission in April 2017 and, as a result, ceased to be a part of the class inquiry. However, despite receiving regulatory advice and being reminded to meet their legal duties, the trustees again failed to file the statutory accounting information on time for the financial year ending 31 December 2016.

As a result of the further failure of the trustees to fulfil their legal reporting obligations the Commission has now opened a new inquiry.

In addition to obtaining the overdue accounting information the inquiry will seek to ensure that the trustees comply with their legal duties to file future account submissions within the statutory deadlines and examine broader aspects of the charity’s administration and management to ensure it is being properly managed by the trustees.

The Commission is reminding charity trustees that if their charity’s gross income exceeds £25,000, they have a legal obligation to submit a copy of their annual report and accounts to the Commission within 10 months of the charity’s financial year end. Failure to do this is a criminal offence under section 173(1) of the Charities Act 2011.

It is the Commission’s policy, after it has concluded an inquiry, to publish a report detailing what issues the inquiry looked at, what actions were undertaken as part of the inquiry and what the outcomes were. Reports of previous inquiries by the Commission are available on GOV.UK.

The charity’s details can be viewed on the Commission’s online charity search tool.

Ends

Notes to editors

1. The Charity Commission is the independent regulator of charities in England and Wales. To find out more about our work, see the about us page on GOV.UK.
2. Search for charities on our check charity tool.
3. Section 46 of the Charities Act 2011 gives the commission the power to institute inquiries. The opening of an inquiry gives the commission access to a range of investigative, protective and remedial legal powers.