Finance: Update

KEITH DANIELS, of the Sheffield office of KPMG, has taken over the presidency of the Chartered Institute of Taxation and is determined to rationalise the way in which tax is gathered from small and medium- sized enterprises and so "simplify the relationship between the State and the taxpayer".

u

BDO STOY Hayward, the second-tier accountancy firm, has launched an "easy-to-use" company valuation tool. Developed using statistical analysis techniques by the mergers and acquisitions team at the firm, the PCPI Pricing Curve is a chart that shows the relationship between the profits of a company and the price that it should command on sale.

u

LONDON GUILDHALL University has set up a business school that will target what it sees as the lack of educational courses training people for specific careers in the City. The school will involve six departments, including accounting and financial services, computing, information systems and maths and economics, and will offer both vocational and professional education.

u

THE GOVERNMENT is to pioneer use of a smart-card signature service, launched last week by Barclays Bank, to enable new self-employed individuals to register their status on the Internet. This initial application of the Barclays Endorse card, which will enable documents to be signed digitally for submission via the Internet to the Contributions Agency, the Inland Revenue and HM Customs & Excise, will be tested over the next six months in nine locations around the country.

THE INTRODUCTION of the euro from next January will provide a major opportunity for information technology fraud, according to research by the IT services company GratnerGroup. It says that many European organisations preparing their IT systems for the euro, and also grappling with the Year 2000 problem, face significantly increased risks of financial loss from both inadvertent errors and intentional computer-related fraud.

u

TILLINGHAST-TOWERS Perrin, the management consultancy, has launched a worldwide capital management practice that it claims helps insurers achieve more effective utilisation of their capital. At a time when the insurance industry continues to consolidate, insurers realise that achieving higher capital productivity and company value have become critical factors for success, says the firm.