Record spending, Bank of England, spread betting and housing hotspots

As predicted, shoppers worked themselves into a frenzy during November’s Black Friday, new figures reveal. But this year it was internet sales that soared.

According to the British Retail Consortium, a record one in four pounds was spent online during Black Friday. The Telegraph reports that ‘online sales of non-food items, which includes homewares and clothing, represented 27.6 per cent of all total non-food sales in the UK during November, against 25.3 per cent the year before.’

All told, about £1.23 billion was spent online on Black Friday alone, according to retail analysts at IMRG, while 64 per cent of purchases were made on mobile devices, according to data from ChannelAdvisor.

Bank of England

The BBC reports that, at a speech in Liverpool yesterday, Mark Carney warned that ‘people will turn their backs on free and open markets unless something is done to help those left behind by the financial crisis’.

The Bank of England Governor said: ‘Globalisation is associated with low wages, insecure employment, stateless corporations and striking inequalities.