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11th January 2012 - Google persuades Spanish bank BBVA to use the cloud

Spanish banking giant BBVA is switching its 110,000 staff to use Google's range of enterprise software.

The deal is the biggest that the search giant has signed with one company for its cloud-computing services, where software is offered as a service via the internet.

The bank told the BBC it will use Google's tools only for internal communication.

But the deal could be seen as a breakthrough in corporate adoption.

Banking - with its high security needs and strict regulations - was always considered to be one of the last industries to accept cloud-computing.

BBVA's director of innovation, Carmen Herranz, stressed that all customer data and other key banking systems would "stay in our own data centres" and be completely separate from the cloud solution.

The bank would use Google applications like email, calendar, docs, chat, video conferencing and other collaboration tools to "achieve a cultural change" and get "the whole company working together" across the 26 countries where BBVA is based.

Blacks, whose outlets include the Millets chain, said in its statement that it needed extra funding and was looking a a range of options to raise it.

It said it had the support of its lender, Royal Bank of Scotland.

The group had already renegotiated its existing banking covenants in light of the earlier losses.

11th January 2012- UK manufacturers favour asset finance

Asset finance is the main source of funding for UK manufacturers, second only to cash reserves, according to the Annual Manufacturing Report 2011 (AMR).

Asked to select which methods they had used to raise capital over the last two years and which they expect to use over the next two, 37% of UK manufacturers identified asset finance.

The funding model outstripped overdrafts, bank loans and venture capital investment but was surpassed by the option to use company reserves which 80% of manufacturing companies selected.

11th January 2012 - Skyscrapers 'precede every crash'

There is an "unhealthy correlation" between the building of skyscrapers and subsequent financial crashes, according to Barclays Capital.

Examples include the Empire State building, built as the Great Depression was under way, and the current world's tallest, the Burj Khalifa, built just before Dubai almost went bust.

China is currently the biggest builder of skyscrapers, the bank said.

India also has 14 skyscrapers under construction.

"Often the world's tallest buildings are simply the edifice of a broader skyscraper building boom, reflecting a widespread misallocation of capital and an impending economic correction," Barclays Capital analysts said.

The bank noted that the world's first skyscraper, the Equitable Life building in New York, was completed in 1873 and coincided with a five-year recession. It was demolished in 1912.

Other examples include Chicago's Willis Tower (which was formerly known as the Sears Tower) in 1974, just as there was an oil shock and the US dollar's peg to gold was abandoned.

The findings might be a concern for Londoners, who are currently seeing the construction of what will be Western Europe's tallest building, the Shard.

That will be 1,017ft (310m) tall on completion.