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The all-party parliamentary group on investment fraud and fairer financial services has highlighted a "revolving door" between banks and regulators as a key factor in ongoing financial scandals in the UK. The report, titled Why Our Financial Conduct Regulation Needs Reform, states that regulators are overly influenced by the sectors they oversee, sidelining consumer voices. MPs noted that past scandals, such as the mis-selling of payment protection insurance, indicate systemic issues. They recommend establishing a royal commission to clarify fairness in financial services and enhance accountability of regulators to consumers.

 

The Times

AI is increasing the speed, density and complexity of work rather than reducing it, according to an analysis of 164,000 workers’ digital work activity by workforce analytics and productivity-tracking software company ActivTrak. The data covers more than 443 million hours of work across 1,111 employers, making it one of the biggest studies of AI’s effects on work habits to date, the Wall Street Journal reports. “It’s not that AI doesn’t create efficiency,” observed Gabriela Mauch, ActivTrak’s chief customer officer. “It’s that the capacity it frees up immediately gets repurposed into doing other work, and that’s where the creep is likely to happen.”

 

Wall Street Journal

Reuters reports on a ​growing industry of ex-military and national security advisors who are helping Wall Street firms identify imminent military action. Around 6 p.m. ET on the day before US-Israeli air strikes killed Iran's Supreme Leader on Saturday February 28, for example, geopolitical risk consultancy WestExec Advisors advised clients that there was a 65% probability of military action that weekend, said its managing partner Nitin Chadda. "What you're really seeing from the financial industry is ​how national security and economic security have been merging over the last few years, and that is accelerating," observed Amy Mitchell, founding partner at geopolitical consultancy Kilo Alpha Strategies.

 

Reuters

European businesses warn that a push for “tech sovereignty” could hit profits and risk undermining the continent’s competitiveness, as Brussels boosts efforts to reduce its reliance on US tech giants. 

 

Financial Times

Companies House, the UK government agency which incorporates and dissolves limited companies, temporarily shut its online filing service after a glitch exposed confidential data of over 5m businesses. The bug allowed unauthorised users to edit sensitive information, including directors' names and addresses. Dan Neidle, founder of Tax Policy Associates, alerted Companies House to the issue. He said: "There are obvious security and GDPR implications of revealing directors' home and email addresses for millions of companies." Companies House confirmed the issue and is investigating the breach.

 

Daily Mail

McKinsey is rushing to fix flaws in an in-house AI system after hackers - who acted without malicious intent - gained access to millions of its internal messages and were able to identify sensitive files. Researchers at red-team security startup CodeWall say their AI agent hacked McKinsey's internal AI platform and gained full read and write access to the chatbot in just two hours. "We used a specific AI research agent to autonomously select the target, it did this without zero human input," CodeWall CEO Paul Price told The Register. "Hackers will be using the same technology."

 

Financial Times

The Register

Stellantis, the carmaker that is the owner of brands ranging from Jeep to Fiat, is pushing tens of thousands of its white-collar workers in Europe back to the office ​full-time to boost efficiency. Since the pandemic, workers in France, Italy and Germany were allowed to work as little as ⁠1.5 days per week in the office. The return to office full-time will start in these three countries and "progressively extend ​to other countries," Stellantis said. The ​CFE-CGC union, the main union representing the company's workers in France, opposes the plan. "This abrupt reversal . . . undermines 10 years of pioneering policy on agility," CFE-CGC union representative Laurent Oechsel told Reuters. "It ⁠creates a ​climate of major concern."

 

Reuters

UK regulators are demanding that major social media platforms including Meta, TikTok, Snap and YouTube do more to keep children off their services, warning that companies were not enforcing their own minimum age rules. Ofcom and the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) said they were increasingly concerned ⁠about algorithmic feeds that expose children to harmful or addictive content. "These online services are household names, but ​they're failing to put children's safety at the heart of their products," Melanie Dawes, Ofcom's chief executive, ​said. "That must now change quickly, or Ofcom will act." Ofcom can fine companies up to 10% of their qualifying global revenue; the ​ICO can issue fines of up to 4% of a ​company's global annual turnover.

 

Reuters

A European Commission monitoring exercise has found that many online retailers across seven EU countries are not clearly displaying mandatory energy labels and product information sheets during the online shopping process. The January 2026 check reviewed 36 online stores and 377 products, including smartphones, tablets, tumble dryers, and heating and cooling equipment. Energy labels - the A-to-G ratings that help consumers compare energy efficiency - were often visible on individual product pages but frequently missing from catalogue listings and shopping basket pages where purchasing decisions are made. The monitoring also found that less energy-efficient products were more likely to lack proper label display. The Commission noted that manufacturers and importers must supply the correct label information, while retailers are responsible for displaying it properly. A follow-up monitoring exercise is planned in about a year.

 

The Brussels Times

Delivery Hero is facing mounting pressure from major shareholder Aspex Management, which has warned it could push to replace the online takeaway food group's leadership unless progress is made in its ongoing strategic review. In a letter to chief executive Niklas Oestberg, the Hong Kong-based investor, Delivery Hero’s third-largest shareholder with a 9.2% stake worth about €474m, said there had been little progress and cautioned that further value could be destroyed without faster action. Aspex also questioned whether the company is the best owner of certain businesses in Asia, the Middle East and Latin America, warning it may pursue legal steps, including seeking leadership changes, if improvements are not made.

 

Financial Times

Reuters

German wholesale prices rose 1.2% year-on-year in February, according to data released on Friday by federal statistics office Destatis.

 

Reuters