Monday newspaper round-up: BT, ultra-long mortgages, Fever-Tree

13th May 2024 07:21

(Sharecast News) - BT has said it is increasingly using artificial intelligence to help it detect and neutralise threats from hackers targeting business customers amid repeated attacks on companies. The £10.5bn group is aiming to build up its business protecting customers from online criminals and has patented technology that uses AI to analyse attack data to allow companies to protect their tech infrastructure. British businesses are routinely facing hacking attempts, and some recent high-profile victims have included including the outsourcer Capita, Royal Mail and British Airways. - Guardian

Homebuyers are increasingly being forced to "gamble" with their retirement prospects to get on the housing ladder by taking on ultra-long mortgages lasting beyond the end of their working life, it has been claimed. More than a million mortgages that stretch beyond the borrower's state pension age have been arranged in the last three years, figures show. The data, obtained via a freedom of information (FoI) request by the former Lib Dem pensions minister Steve Webb, show the proportion of home loans arranged to last into retirement increased from 31% in the final quarter of 2021 to 42% in the same period last year. - Guardian

The sale of new petrol-fuelled motorcycles is set to be banned from 2040, under plans due to be announced by ministers as part of the Government's net zero crackdown. The move would affect all vehicles classed as "L3" and upwards, including scooters and light, medium and higher-powered motorcycles. There are around 1.3m motorcycles registered in the UK. - Telegraph

Women are driving record worklessness because of ill health, analysis has found, as a growing number drop out of the jobs market because of neck and back pain. More than 1.5m women have dropped out of the workforce because of long-term sickness, according to analysis by the Trades Union Congress (TUC), which blamed rising NHS waiting lists for the crisis. The figure marks a 48pc increase compared with five years ago, equivalent to 503,000 women. - Telegraph

Fever-Tree is teaming up with one of the leading makers of French rosé wine as it seeks to grab a slice of the lucrative spritz market from Aperol. The mixers group, which is best known for its range of upmarket tonics, will uncork a pale pink rosé spritz today, created in a collaboration with the Provence-based Maison Mirabeau winery. - The Times

A former lord chancellor has urged the government to strengthen measures to address national security concerns raised by the ownership of a stake in Vodafone. Sir Robert Buckland has called for an independent committee to oversee the risks of the 14.6 per cent stake held by e&, a telecoms group based in the United Arab Emirates. - The Times