We’re looking to speak to couriers and delivery drivers about their experiences of customers and people who work at the businesses they’re delivering goods to and from.

Have you had a good experience or have you had any difficulties? If so, have you reported these to the firm you were working for, and how did they respond? Do you have any concerns?

Greggs has returned to profit after sales bounced back above pre-pandemic levels, as the bakery chain looks to hire 500 new staff and expand its network of shops.

Greggs, known for its sausage rolls, steak bakes and vegan snacks, reported a £55.5m pretax profit in the 26 weeks to 3 July. The company, which has raised its profit guidance for the year and reinstated its dividend on the back of the strong performance, reported a £65.2m loss in the same period last year.

The company said that sales in the second quarter of the year were 2.8% higher than in the same period in 2019, after the reopening of non-essential retail outlets which led to more shoppers returning to high streets.

BP will hand shareholders a windfall of $1.4bn (£1bn) through share buybacks and has promised to increase its dividend by 4% a year up to 2025 after predicting a short-term increase in global oil prices before a quicker than expected shift to low-carbon energy.

Rising global oil prices helped BP make an underlying profit of $2.8bn for the three months to June, up sharply from a loss of $6.68bn in the same quarter last year when Covid-19 brought the oil industry to a standstill.

BP plans to use the healthier cashflows from the first half of the year to begin buying back $1.4bn worth of shares, and will continue buybacks of $1bn every quarter alongside dividend growth of 4% a year until the middle of the decade.

Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of the world economy, the financial markets, the eurozone and business.

Overnight, the board of governors of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) approved the largest resource injection in its history to boost global liquidity and help countries which are struggling as a result of the pandemic.

The reserve assets - known as “special drawing rights” - total $650bn (£468bn) and become available on 23 August when they will be credited to IMF member countries.

The lion’s share - around 70% - of the allocation will go to the world’s 20 largest economies (the G20), although around $275bn is destined for emerging markets and developing countries, including low-income countries.

The IMF’s managing director Kristalina Georgieva hailed a “historic decision” and a “shot in the arm for the global economy at a time of unprecedented crisis”.

Can you please help me as BT is chasing me for £348 in early termination fees despite previously telling me that it would forgo these charges. The broadband service provided to my house had always been poor but after I had open-heart surgery four years ago, I needed a service that worked. After repeated attempts by BT to improve matters, I eventually switched to Sky, which improved matters somewhat.

At the time, BT said I could leave penalty-free, and staff told me to ignore any bills that were sent. However, the company’s most recent letter said it will pass the matter to debt collectors if the bill is not paid with seven days.AB, Penzance

It won’t be much consolation to you but I think BT’s customer services are much improved in recent years – most likely due to the decision to bring its call centre operations back to the UK.

After I got on to BT, it quickly resolved the matter. It says: “We’re very sorry for the time it has taken to remove AB’s early...

The UK’s biggest banks are failing to properly help fraud victims, leaving them “feeling abandoned at a time of crisis and exposed to future scams”, the consumer group Which? has claimed.

Which? found that customers often struggled to contact their bank after they had been a victim of a scam, including one HSBC customer who waited a total of seven hours on hold and racked up a £50 phone bill.

It surveyed more than 400 people who had been the victims of a fraud – or attempted fraud – in the last 12 months and found that 17% were unsatisfied with how their bank had managed the incident.

The Office for National Statistics has estimated that for the year ending March 2021 there were 4.6m fraud offences, meaning a significant number of people were left to fall between the cracks, Which? has warned.

It has previously estimated that £700,000 is being lost to bank transfer scams every day, which works out at £491 a minute.

Of the people who...

About 2,500 Qantas and Jetstar employees will be stood down for two months because of domestic coronavirus border closures, in a move unions have criticised for being taken one day after the announcement of a government wage support package.

Domestic pilots, cabin crew and airport workers will be stood down, mostly in New South Wales, but won’t lose their jobs.

The only simple element in US group Parker Hannifin’s £6.3bn bid for Coventry-based defence and aerospace business Meggitt is the takeover premium: an offer at 71% more than last week’s share price counts as fat by any measure. UK investors, once again, have been guilty of seriously undervaluing a FTSE 250 industrial company. Meggitt’s line of work – brakes, sensors, valves, fuel tanks and other components for commercial and military aircraft – may not be glamorous, but will endure beyond current pandemic upsets.

The tricky part is the “legally binding commitments to HM Government” being championed by Cleveland-based Parker as a way to try to make the deal go down easily with UK politicians. “Legally-binding” is a phrase meant to impress. The actual commitments do not. Or, rather, the problem is that they don’t last long.

Only one pledge – the promise to increase Meggitt’s research and development spending in the UK by 20% over five years – relates to a...

Thousands of households could lose their energy supplier this winter as small companies face the financial shock of record highs on the UK gas market and a key deadline to hand over renewable energy subsidies at the end of the month.

The energy regulator is monitoring the finances of companies amid concerns that a string of small suppliers could go bust later in the year.

Martin Young, an equity analyst at Investec, said a “combination of many” factors could lead companies to fail or become the target of an opportunistic acquisition by a larger rival.

Some small providers, without a robust financial framework, may have been caught out by the steep gas market rises in recent months if they had not bought enough in advance to supply their customers through the winter months.

Unexpectedly high gas prices could compound the difficulty of meeting a payment deadline of 31 August to hand over money collected from bills to pay renewable energy developers...

The UK offshore oil and gas industry sector is a major asset in ensuring the UK meets its Paris agreement commitment to keep the planet’s global average temperature rise below 1.5C, says Deirdre Michie

Goldman Sachs is lifting pay for its junior bankers, months after graduates raised concerns over “inhumane” working conditions and 100-hour weeks.

The Guardian understands that the salary increases apply to the three most junior positions across the investment bank, with first-year analysts – who previously earned about £50,000 in base pay – set to see their pay rise to $110,000 (£79,000) before bonuses. Second-year analysts are being notified that their pay will rise to $125,000, while their more senior associates will bring in $150,000.

Formal announcements about the increases – which will apply to bankers globally, including in the UK – are expected later this week.

Goldman’s junior bankers are some of the last to receive any sort of increase in compensation or benefits, since a leaked report revealing concerns about poor conditions prompted rival banks to introduce perks for overworked staff. Some of the most eye-catching have included one-off...

Shortages of labour and materials are hampering the ability of Britain’s manufacturers to take advantage of a post-lockdown boost to demand, the latest snapshot of industry has shown.

Despite posting another strong performance in July, the monthly survey from IHS Markit/Cips found output and order book growth slowed to its weakest in four months.

The report found that expansion would have been faster last month had it not been for stretched supply chains and problems recruiting staff. Firms also reported continued difficulties adjusting to post-Brexit trading arrangements.

The July manufacturing purchasing managers’ index (PMI) stood at 60.4 – well above the 50.0 cut-off point between an expanding and contracting sector – but down on the 63.9 in June, and the record 65.6 reported in May.

IHS Markit/Cips said the July performance was still among the best on record but would have been even better had it not been for supply constraints. Cost and...

HSBC has increased its bankers’ bonus pool by 50% after profits grew by more than fourfold in the second quarter thanks to an economic rebound in key markets including the UK.

The London-headquartered bank said it had put aside $900m (£650m) to compensate its star bankers in the first half of the year, up from $600m during the same period in 2020 when its profits suffered from the onset of the Covid crisis. Its top bankers will have another six months to increase the bonus pool, before it is paid out next spring.

HSBC said the jump in banker payouts reflected the lender’s strong performance, as pretax profits swelled to $5bn in the three months to 30 June, up from $1bn a year earlier when it put aside billions of pounds to cover potential defaults linked to the pandemic.

The bank said improving economic forecasts, particularly in the UK, meant it could release $284m worth of loan loss provisions, compared with the $3.8bn it had put aside to cover...

The British aerospace firm Meggitt has agreed a £6.3bn takeover deal from US rival Parker Hannifin, in the latest approach for a UK-listed company from an overseas buyer.

The board of Meggitt, the FTSE 250 engineering company that operates in the aerospace, defence and energy markets, has unanimously recommended that shareholders accept the 800p-per-share deal.

The offer is at a 71% premium to Meggitt’s closing share price on Friday. Meggitt’s share price surged 60% to 750p at the start of trading on Monday as investors reacted to the news.

“Meggitt is one of the world’s foremost aerospace, defence and energy businesses, leading the market with a strong portfolio of technology and manufacturing capabilities, and holding a significant amount of intellectual property,” said the Meggitt chairman, Sir Nigel Rudd.

“While Meggitt is currently pursuing a strong, standalone strategy which will deliver value to shareholders over the long term, Parker’s...

It has been a profits parade for British banks so far this summer, with the major UK lenders reporting an economic recovery that has meant previous predictions of loan losses were unfounded.

It is HSBC’s turn today. It reinstated dividend payments (after a ban was lifted) and released $700m (£503m) that had been set aside to cover bad debts after profits easily beat analyst estimates.

The Guardian’s banking correspondent, Kalyeena Makortoff, writes:

Hollywood’s Sunset Studios, which produced La La Land, Zoolander and the first in the X-Men franchise, has become the latest US movie production house to adopt the leafy Hertfordshire countryside as its main base outside the US.

Backed by £700m from two major US investment firms, the TV and film studio complex will create more than 4,500 jobson a 37-hectare (91-acre) greenfield site in Broxbourne, close to the arc of rival studio complexes north-west of London known as Britain’s Hollywood.

The area is already home to independent Elstree Studios, where Paddington, Netflix series The Crown and the BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing are filmed, as well as the BBC’s own Elstree studio, which is home to EastEnders.

Sky is in the process of building a 13-hectare studio complex in Elstree which will be home for the TV group and NBCUniversal, which owns The Fast and the Furious-maker Universal Studios.

There is also a proposal by property developer Bidwells to...

Wellbeing in England has decreased in the last year while loneliness and mistrust in government has increased, analysis of ONS data shows.

The new report from Carnegie UK comes in advance of the publication on Tuesday of the latest ONS GDP figures, which are expected to show that the UK economy grew in the second quarter of 2021.

Caroline Lucas, the Green party MP, said the analysis highlighted a “worrying decline in collective wellbeing” that suggested the government’s priorities were not working for people.

The Conservative party has a problem with the young. In the last general election fewer than one in six of the under-25s voted for Boris Johnson, and it is unlikely that the pandemic has improved matters.

While it’s the case that the elderly have been most at risk of contracting Covid-19 and dying from it, the economic cost has been highest for teenagers and those in their 20s. It is the young, whose jobs are disproportionately concentrated in the retailing and hospitality sectors, that have been most likely to be furloughed or made redundant.

Statistics suggest that very little seems to have changed since 19 July, when the government ended all restrictions on socialising in England.

In London, people travelled less after so-called “freedom day” than during the weeks before, according to Transport for London figures. Elsewhere in the UK, where restrictions vary, there appeared little change in public transport activity. Restaurants and pubs saw a slight increase, but are still a long way off pre-pandemic levels.

CGA, the hospitality research agency, found that some people who had been happy to go out after the third lockdown ended in April had been put off by the fear of busy venues after 19 July.

Public investors in the private equity firm that owns a majority stake in the Israeli spyware company NSO Group are in talks to transfer management of that fund to Berkeley Research Group, a US consulting firm.

When the Nigerian government suddenly banned access to foreign exchange for textile import companies in March 2019, Moses Awa* felt stuck. His business – importing woven shoes from Guangzhou, China, to sell in the northern city of Kano and his home state of Abia, further south – had been suffering along with the country’s economy. The ban threatened to tip it over the edge. “It was a serious crisis: I had to act fast,” Awa says.

He turned to his younger brother, Osy, who had begun trading bitcoins. “He was just accumulating, accumulating crypto, saying that at some point years down the line it could be a great investment. When the forex ban happened, he showed me how much I needed it, too. I could pay my suppliers in bitcoins if they accepted – and they did.”

According to bitcoin trading platform Paxful, Nigeria is now second only to the US for bitcoin trading. The dollar volume of crypto received by users in Nigeria in May was $2.4bn, up from $684m last...

The government faces calls to bring in a social tariff to help struggling households pay their energy bills as soaring prices threaten to drive an extra half a million homes into fuel poverty this winter.

Some of the UK’s biggest energy companies have warned ministers that millions of bill payers will need extra help this winter as the regulator prepares to reveal one of the steepest ever hikes to the energy price cap.

The regulator, Ofgem, is expected to raise prices by about £150 a year for 15m homes using a default dual-fuel energy tariff from October because gas prices have soared to 16-year highs in the past week.

The “unprecedented” global gas market surge could drive Ofgem’s energy cap, which is calculated based on the cost of supplying energy, to a record £1,288 on average a year. It would also add over 500,000 homes to the more than three million already in fuel poverty, according to campaigners.

The looming crisis threatens to deal a...

OpenStreetMap, the Wikipedia-for-maps organisation that seeks to create a free and open-source map of the globe, is considering relocating to the EU, almost 20 years after it was founded in the UK by the British entrepreneur Steve Coast.

OpenStreetMap Foundation, which was formally registered in 2006, two years after the project began, is a limited company registered in England and Wales. Following Brexit, the organisation says the lack of agreement between the UK and EU could render its continued operation in Britain untenable.

“There is not one reason for moving, but a multitude of paper cuts, most of which have been triggered or amplified by Brexit,” Guillaume Rischard, the organisation’s treasurer, told members of the foundation in an email sent earlier this month.

One “important reason”, Rischard said, was the failure of the UK and EU to agree on mutual recognition of database rights. While both have an agreement to recognise copyright protections,...