Business Diary: At last, RBS spots a money-making plan

Good to see Royal Bank of Scotland come up with money-making plans as it tries to pay back back taxpayers for all their support. It is trying to persuade customers to pay £35 for insurance against debit and credit card fraud, even though the bank knows it almost always has to reimburse customers who lose out this way. So you pay to insure against its losses. Genius.

Bank guests face anger

Deutsche Bank hosts a metals conference today and faces an picket from union members. The activists are targeting Vale, the mining giant which is making a presentation at the conference, and is involved in industrial disputes around the world.



Ryanair knifes BA again

Not content with pinching BA's "World's favourite airline" slogan, Michael O'Leary's Ryanair is rubbing his rival's nose in it. Soon after BA revealed a second-half loss on Friday, Ryanair's figures showed it carried four times as many passengers in October. Meanies.



Cheers to the offie

One of the most visited internet sites on Friday was a page listing Wine Rack, Thresher and Victoria Wine shops slated for closure by KPMG. Not that visitors wanted to know whether to express their sympathy to staff set to lose their jobs: no, they wanted to know which shops would be selling off cheap booze.

Number of the day: 4.6m

The number of hours British workers collectively spend commuting every day, according to the IT company Citrix

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