Housing, banking, cash machines and car insurance

Hardly a day goes by without commentary and new research on Britain’s housing market. Now the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors has said that the market ‘stuttered’ at the end of last year and has started slowly in 2017. The Guardian reports that sales activity fell in December and estate agents are less optimistic about prospects over the coming months. Rics said: ‘It remains to be seen if this is a temporary setback. The number of house sales in the UK faltered in December, and predictions for expected new sales over the next three months were also pared back.’ Banking jobs ThisisMoney reports on comments from Stuart Gulliver, the head of HSBC, who has strongly indicated that the bank will move 1,000 jobs responsible for a fifth of the revenues of its UK operations from London to Paris as a consequence of Brexit. Swiss bank UBS has also said today it would ‘have to’ move investment bankers from the UK capital to Germany or Spain because of Brexit.

The banks’ announcements follow the speech made by the Prime Minister yesterday in which she detailed plans for Brexit, saying that the UK would definitely quit the single market.