In the week Gordon Brown called for tough new competition laws and appointed Ron Sandler, former chief executive of NatWest, to investigate long term savings, it emerged that key recommendations of last year's report into banking have been shelved. In the week Gordon Brown called for tough new competition laws and appointed Ron Sandler, former chief executive of NatWest, to investigate long term savings, it emerged that key recommendations of last year's report into banking have been shelved. Don Cruickshank, the chairman of the Stock Exchange who was appointed by the Chancellor to probe the banking system, found that banks overcharge customers by up to £5bn a year. He called for a Competition Commission enquiry into small business banking and a regulator to oversee payments transmissions, such as cheque clearing and direct debits.The former is ongoing but has been held up by Lloyds TSB's bid for Abbey National and is not expected to significantly change the operation of the industry. The latter, dubbed Paycom, has been shelved and unlikely to see the light of day.The Treasury is denying Paycom is now a non-runner but admitted its introduction would require primary legislation and, as it was not mentioned in last week's Queen's Speech, it is unlikely to be put to parliament before the end of 2002.Indeed the Independent on Sunday has learned that the Treasury official assigned to dealing with the setting up of Paycom has now been moved to other tasks and no replacement has been appointed.The failure to implement the key recommendations of the Cruickshank report is sure to anger small business leaders who welcomed his recommendations as an attempt to deal with "Rip-off Britain". They claim that the banks make £1.5 billion a year from payments transmissions.Mr Brown's strategy of reviewing the workings of the financial services sector has yet to deliver any concrete results.
The study by Paul Myners, the former head of Gartmore, into the life and pensions industry has led to criticisms from the industry, companies and investors.The appointment of Mr Sandler to review the long term savings industry has been met with surprise. The former chief executive of Exco, Lloyd's of London and NatWest, is not seen as a heavy hitter in the City.. Media tycoon Rupert Murdoch is planning to shelve a series of newspaper distribution contracts in the UK and expand News International into wholesaling. Media tycoon Rupert Murdoch is planning to shelve a series of newspaper distribution contracts in the UK and expand News International into wholesaling.It is understood that senior executives at News International are working on a three-year strategy to deliver its newspapers directly to retailers and newsagents. The plan will be trialled in London and in the West Midlands and if successful could be rolled out in other regions of the UK.The company publishes the Sun, the UK's top selling national newspaper, as well as the News of the Word, the Times and the Sunday Times.This move would see News International, that already has a small wholesale operation, ditching contracts with newspaper wholesalers, including WHS News, owned by WH Smith, as well as scores of independent wholesalers.Such a move would give the publisher control of the entire newspaper supply chain from writing, printing and distribution.Ian Jackson, News International's director of sales and circulation, said: "We have proven that we are a willing and able wholesaler. There will be more to come."The publisher has developed a two-pronged strategy to achieve its wholesale ambitions.Firstly, it already owns NRSL, a small newspaper wholesale business in the West Midlands.
News International plans to use this as a springboard into other geographical markets. In particular, the company wants to expand into Wolverhampton and Worcester.News International currently uses WHS News to distribute its papers in these areas.Secondly, News International hopes to buy a site in London's King's Cross as a base to distribute newspapers within London's M25 motorway region.But News International is not planning to distribute to all regions of the UK. One problem could be Scotland, that is dominated by wholesaler John Menzies. One source close to News International said: "There is no way they can march up to Scotland because Menzies is so powerful.
