Business Bytes

UK retailer marks and Spencer has announced it is to open its first store in Egypt later this year. It will be located in Cairo at the Dandy Mega Hall shopping centre.

Best known in the UK for their almost universal appeal in ladies fashion, good quality ladies underwear and men's suits, the chain plans to open two stores in Cairo by 2012.

The first store is 2,600 square metres and will be opened through a franchise partnership the the Al Futtaim Group. A second 4,400 two floor flagship store is planned for the Cairo Festival City shopping mall in spring 2012.

M&S is rebuilding its global footprint after it scaled back its international presence in 2001, when it closed 38 stores in Europe as well as selling off its Kings Super Markets and Brooks Brothers subsidiaries in the United States.

Self-service supermarket checkouts may not be as successful at cutting queues as was hoped when they were introduced two years ago.

According to The Grocer magazine, average queuing time for a staffed till increased increased from 5min 15 secs in 2008 to 5mins 42 secs this year. Sainsbury's experienced a rise from 5min 30secs to 5mins 35secs. The Sunday Telegraph also went to branches of Sainsbury, Tesco and Marks & Spencer, purchased two identical baskets of goods through each method and found that on five of the nine occassions, self-service was slower. Hardly definitive, surely the sensible thing to do is take a look at the queues for each and go with the shorter one?

I do agree that self-service checkouts can be a pain sometimes, with error messages that a staff member has to sort out, rejected bank notes and incorrect identification of fruit and vegetables as well as having to be verified when purchasing alcohol.  Overall however, I quite like them and I think as people learn how to use them properly, errors will continue to reduce.

Tesco and Sainsbury say that average queue time has reduced overall as customers with fewer items use the self-service checkouts more and there are more payment points available now due to their introduction.

Retailers are also insisting that the introduction of self-service checkouts has not reduced staff numbers, but that they had different duties.

Unions are concerned that customers frustrated with machine errors may take it out on staff, putting them at greater risk. So far, self-service checkouts account for 3% of incidents, but Unions are worried that as they become more widespread, this figure will rise.

I came across this interesting article on the BBC about the options savers have for their money.

Interest rates are at the lowest rate for years. Whilst this is good for those of us with mortgage payments linked to the Bank of England's base rate, its not so good for savers wanting to get the most out of their money. A lot of the most generous savings accounts have been withdrawn, leaving investors in a bit of a quandry.

One possibility is index-linked gilts, but the redemption price of the gilt may fall if the inflation rate falls over the term. Another is shares, but share prices can fall as well as rise as well as there being no guarantee what the dividend will do.

The first thing to check is that you savings account is competitive, and to change it if it isn't. The same goes for current accounts, some pay interest if you are in credit.

The best interest rates are usually available on accounts where the money is locked away for a fixed amount of time. The most obvious pitfall of this is to only invest if you are absolutely certain the money will not be needed elsewhere during that time. Also, be aware that an apparently good rate of interest now, might not still be the case a few years down the line. Most importantly though, do not invest over £50k in any one account or it will not be covered by the FSCS compensation scheme.

Make the most of your ISA entitlement. At the moment there is a £5,100 tax free allowance per person and, as with other savings accounts interest rates are often higher if you lock in the money for longer.

Higher rate tax payers may also want to consider an offset mortgage. This is where money in savings and current accounts offsets the amount owed on a mortgage. This effectively means that you earn tax-free interest on your savings at the same rate as your mortgage.

It is also usually adviseable to keep some money aside for emergencies in an instant access account.