UK's first 'social supermarket' opens to help fight food poverty

Community Shop in Goldthorpe gives local shoppers access to surplus food from supermarkets for up to 70% less

Britain's first "social supermarket" opens its doors on Monday, offering shoppers on the verge of food poverty the chance to buy food and drink for up to 70% less than normal high-street prices.

If successful, the Community Shop, in Goldthorpe, near Barnsley, south Yorkshire, which is backed by large retailers and supermarkets, could be replicated elsewhere in Britain.

Community Shop is a subsidiary of Company Shop, Britain's largest commercial re-distributor of surplus food and goods, which works with retailers and manufacturers to tackle their surpluses sustainably and securely.

It sells on residual products, such as those with damaged packaging or incorrect labelling, to membership-only staff shops in factories. The new project goes one step further, located in the community for the first time and also matching surplus food with social need.

Membership of the pilot store – in Goldthorpe, an area of social deprivation – will be restricted to people living in a specific local postcode area who also get welfare support.

Individuals who shop at Community Shop will not only get access to cheaper food, but will also be offered programmes of wider social and financial support, such as debt advice, cookery skills and home budgeting.

The scheme is being supported by retailers, brands and manufacturers, including Asda, Morrisons, Co-operative Food, M&S, Tesco, Mondelez,Ocado, Tetley, Young's and Müller. All are diverting surpluses to the pilot.

Company Shop hopes to open Community Shops in London and beyond next year should the pilot prove successful and sustainable.

Sarah Dunwell, director of environment and social affairs at Company Shop, said: "With many families facing tough times in Barnsley, Company Shop wanted to do more to match surplus stock with people who really need it.

"I was delighted to help develop and deliver the UK's first social supermarket. Industry surplus is hard to avoid, but what Community Shop shows is that if we all work together we can make sure that surplus food delivers lasting social good."

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Tesco accused of squeezing suppliers to support its profits

Britain's biggest supermarket alleged to have written letters demanding money from suppliers' trading accounts

Tesco has been accused of squeezing suppliers to support its profits ahead of an anticipated grim trading update next week.

Mike Dennis, an analyst at stockbroker Cantor Fitzgerald, suggested that Britain's biggest supermarket had written letters demanding money from suppliers' trading accounts – where payments are deposited by Tesco – to support its short-term profit margins.

He said that such activity risked breaching the groceries supply code of practice, which governs dealing between big supermarkets and their direct suppliers.

He said: "It is our view that Tesco has again overstepped the mark and the situation is very difficult for many suppliers."

Tesco said Dennis's assertions were "based on speculation" and it had not broken the code. But it did not specifically deny the allegation that it had recently demanded or taken money from suppliers.

A spokesman said: "In our interim results presentation last month, we set out how the general merchandise transformation programme will be a drag on our sales growth but beneficial to the overall UK margin, helping to offset some of the other investments we are making for customers."

The office of the groceries code adjudicator, Christine Tacon, said she had not received any complaints about Tesco demanding cash from suppliers but would be looking into the accusations.

A spokesperson said: "Where we do hear reports about possible issues surrounding the code, we will look to follow up with the retailers concerned.

"It's obviously too early to conclude whether there has been any breach but we will want to find out more about the circumstances."

Tacon is consulting on the guidance for investigations and enforcement of the code, which may involve fines of up to £1bn for serious breaches. She is expected to publish her recommendations before Christmas and formal investigation can take place before then.

There was no suggestion that Tesco could or should face such an investigation, with probes only expected to be launched in extreme circumstances.

Several retail analysts said that Tesco could use a number of different strategies to meet its promise of maintaining UK profit margins despite an expected 1.5% or 2% fall in underlying sales during the three months to the end of November.

For example, the supermarket has been gradually reducing its sales of less profitable electrical items such as televisions and been heavily promoting more profitable lines such as its premium own-label Finest food range.

Andrew Kasoulis, an analyst at Credit Suisse, said: "Price cuts and negative sales volumes do, of course, weigh on margin, but improving fresh [food] sales, the Finest re-launch, more convenience stores, downsizing non-food, successful refits and less money-off coupons this year are all positive for margin."

He said Tesco's anticipated 5.2% UK margin target for this year could be the result of multiple factors and not necessarily the result of putting pressure on suppliers.

Tesco's management team are under pressure as its underlying sales fall around the world. In Britain it is losing business to upmarket rivals such as Waitrose and hard discounters like Aldi and Lidl.

It is also struggling with the move away from big weekly shopping trips at hypermarkets and a shift to online shopping.
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Tesco planning same-day delivery as it battles rivals

Move would see the UK's biggest online grocer competing with Ocado and Asda

Tesco is preparing to offer same-day delivery for online groceries as it fights to shore up its struggling UK business and take on rival services by Waitrose, Morrisons and Asda.

The move would see the UK's biggest online grocer competing with Ocado, the company which delivers Waitrose groceries and is set to offer the same service for Morrisons shoppers in Warwickshire early next year. Bigger rival Asda is also planning to introduce same-day grocery deliveries next year.

Tesco is already trialling same-day deliveries of food in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, under which shoppers can order goods by midday for delivery by 6pm. Simon Belsham, managing director of grocery home shopping, said: "The trial is working successfully and we are looking to roll that out further."

The news emerged as Tesco opened a 120,000 sq ft centre near Erith, south east London, its sixth dedicated online distribution centre for food. The supermarket uses the "dark stores" – so called because they are not open to the public – in addition to picking groceries for online shoppers from 300 stores. Belsham said Tesco, which controls 47.5% of all online grocery sales in the UK, needed to build capacity because online sales were growing faster in London than elsewhere.

Tesco continues to increase market share online, despite losing ground in its stores. A flurry of notes from City analysts earlier this week suggested the supermarket was set to reveal another set of poor underlying sales next week, putting pressure on boss Phil Clarke, who is trying to turn the business around.

The Erith centre, which will be able to process up to 4,000 orders a day when it is running at full capacity, uses hi-tech warehouse technology to enable it to offer 30,000 different items, 50% more than the average store and 16% more than the five other dark stores.

Belsham said that would allow Tesco to offer more specialist ethnic foods and upmarket lines helping it to appeal to a broader range of shoppers in London.

Meanwhile Tesco is also piloting a collection service at its small Express stores for groceries ordered online. The service is run out of a Tesco delivery van parked behind stores in Datchet and Harrow. Belsham said that combining stores and online services was an important part of Tesco's future.

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Tesco pays out to rid itself of US chain Fresh & Easy

US billionaire Ron Burkle's Yucaipa investment vehicle agrees to take on 150 stores and 4,000 staff

Tesco has finally negotiated an exit from its failed expansion into the US by lending US billionaire Ron Burkle £80m to take away its loss-making Fresh & Easy chain.

After more than nine months searching for a buyer, Burkle's Yucaipa investment vehicle has agreed to take on 150 Fresh & Easy stores as well as 4,000 staff and a vast distribution centre and production facility east of Los Angeles.

The deal will cost Tesco £150m in total, including the loan, payoffs for about 400 permanent staff and the closure of about 50 stores not included in the deal – taking the total cost of the humiliating episode to nearly £2bn. The future for a further 600 staff is unclear, with some expats likely to return to Tesco in the UK while others are part-time staff and will be let go.

Philip Clarke, the UK supermarket's chief executive, said: "The decision we are announcing today represents the best outcome for Tesco shareholders and Fresh & Easy's stakeholders. It offers us an orderly and efficient exit from the US market, while protecting the jobs of more than 4,000 colleagues."

Tesco said that the deal would mean there was no ongoing financial exposure in the US. However, under the agreement, which is expected to be finalised by the end of the year, Tesco will hold warrants that entitle it to a 32.5% stake in the holding company that will run Fresh & Easy, should certain performance criteria be met. They could be exchanged for a cash sum in the future.

Ron Burkle, managing partner of Yucaipa, who founded the Ralphs and Food4Less supermarket chains in the US, indicated that he planned to continue to run Fresh & Easy as a standalone chain.

He said: "Fresh & Easy is a tremendous foundation. Tesco should be applauded for giving their customers an affordable, healthy, convenient shopping experience. Its dedicated employees and great base of customers give us a solid starting point to complete Tesco's vision with some changes that we think will make it even more relevant to today's consumer."

He said Yucaipa planned to build the chain into a "next-generation convenience retail experience". However, there has been speculation that Burkle wants to use the Fresh & Easy stores to relaunch his Wild Oats brand, which he sold to rival Whole Foods Market in 2007.

The deal is good news for Tesco after weeks of speculation that it would be unable to find a buyer for its US business. The trip over the Atlantic, begun in 2007 with ambitious plans for thousands of stores, has proved very costly for Tesco with trading losses and investment reaching some £1.8bn.

The failure has not only meant problems for Tesco but tarnished the reputation of former chief executive Sir Terry Leahy, who was previously held up as a shining example of British retail success.

It also reflected badly on Tim Mason, the Tesco marketing supremo who was relocated to the US to run Fresh & Easy and build it into a chain the same size as Tesco UK. He was made redundant earlier this year with more than £2m.

It was not clear on Tuesday night if Tesco would have to make further write downs after completing the deal.

Selling off the US business is good news for Clarke, who has been attempting to get rid of poorly performing overseas assets in order to concentrate on Tesco's problems at home.

In April, the supermarket reported its first fall in annual profits for 20 years as its chains both abroad and at home suffered during a global downturn.

The ongoing losses in the US were blamed for a squeeze on expenditure in the UK which meant that stores began to look tired and customer service suffered. Tesco has also suffered from a series of PR disasters including revelations that some of its burgers contained horse meat.

Tesco recently revealed it was in negotiations to put its Chinese business into a new joint venture with the state-owned Chain Resources Enterprise. The deal, which would cost Tesco an estimated £1.5bn, would merge its 131 stores into CRE's Vanguard chain, which has nearly 3,000 outlets.

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Now supermarkets want you to live over their shops

Supermarket-built schemes may ease housing shortages, but will they actually be good places to live?

In Streatham, south London, builders are hard at work addressing the capital's dire housing shortage on a site next to the suburb's railway station. Their employer, however, is not a housebuilder such as Bovis or Barratt but Britain's biggest supermarket: Tesco.

Bustling about in hard hats and fluorescent jackets, they are putting the finishing touches to a 60,000 sq ft Tesco store and 250 apartments that sit above, behind and beside it. Living above the shop is very much back in fashion as supermarkets lead the development of thousands of homes in their latest tactic to secure new sites. As a consequence, the race for market share among the UK's largest retailers is inadvertently helping London chip away at a housing shortfall that equates to at least 32,000 new homes per year.

Tesco alone is building more than 800 homes in London in 2013, close to 5% of all the non-local authority homes being built in the capital. Its huge projects in Woolwich, Highams Green and Streatham are merely paving the way for a wave of supermarket-led home building projects which will flood across the south-east. More than 4,500 homes are being planned by the big five grocers in London alone over the coming years, according to property advisor CBRE, while construction market analyst Glenigan estimates supermarkets will be laying the foundations for more than 2,100 homes in 2014. Sainsbury's is likely to be responsible for the bulk of those, as it begins projects involving more than 1,500 homes next year. But Morrisons has planning permission for nearly 400 homes, while Asda is already involved in the building of 100 above its new store in Barking. Even Waitrose and Lidl are getting in on the act.

In the last couple of years, the big five seem to have woken up to the idea of developing homes alongside their retail portfolios, says Robert Davis, research director of Glenigan. He estimates that between them Tesco, Sainsbury's, Waitrose, Asda and Morrisons completed just 267 units in 2012, but that this will soar to more than 1,000 this year and double again next year. Some of these projects were first dreamt up nearly a decade ago but the complexity of gaining planning permission and assembling the sites mean that they are only now coming to fruition.

Helped by an upturn in the housing market, some enormous development projects are about to hit the street, such as Sainsbury's partnership with Barratt to redevelop the site of its supermarket in Nine Elms, in south London, involving nearly 700 homes, an 80,000 sq ft shop and a tube station. But supermarkets are also involved in small-scale urban developments, such as transforming moribund pubs into local convenience stores with a few flats above.

Most of these projects are in London, partly because that's where there is demand for the kind of flats easily built above a shop. Building over a busy supermarket is also relatively expensive, so such pricey apartments are more likely to find buyers in places like London where house prices are recovering rapidly.

But supermarkets have also been pushed into building in the capital because of planning guidance which encourages all new retail developments to include a residential element unless there is a very good reason not to do so. "There is a massive shortage of housing in London. Planners saw supermarkets wanted to grow and they are capitalising on that to force them to help solve the problem," says CBRE's John Witherell.

Local authorities outside London are also looking how they can capitalise on the trend. But Witherell believes these building schemes are more difficult to get off the ground outside the south-east because of lack of demand and the relatively high cost of such homes.Sainsbury's completed a development involving 100 homes in Leek, Staffordshire, this year and Tesco recently completed student accommodation block in Gateshead with nearly 1,000 bedrooms, but such projects, so far at least, have proved more rare.

Supermarkets are looking at a variety of solutions to make above-store building more cost effective, including putting pre-fabricated structures on top of existing shops, according to Witherell. Kathy MacEwen, head of programmes for Cabe, says: "There are many benefits to mixing supermarkets and housing. It makes more efficient use of land, while having residents supports activity and natural surveillance of streets, particularly when the store is closed."

Yet some concerns have been raised about the design and quality of the housing supermarkets are building, given the main purpose of the development is usually to open a new store.

Is it really wise to hand over the development of whole urban communities to the supermarkets? MacEwen says careful design is needed to avoid noise, smells and the sight of unattractive activities like waste storage and removal, deliveries and everyday operations.

But Witherell and Peter Sloane at property company Savills, who is leading sales at Tesco's Woolwich site, says the flats are selling well, which has boosted the prospects for more schemes. Tesco says it is in its interests to build quality homes which are popular with tenants.

"After building we remain the main tenant and occupier for years, so we have an added incentive to make sure these are developments of the highest quality. They need to last and be great places to live, work and shop," a spokesman says. With many more supermarket-backed homes appearing in the next few years, retailers will have to deliver the goods.

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Tesco 'half-price strawberries' deal prompts red faces and £300,000 fine

Supermarket apologises for mis-selling fruit in promotion trading standards officials condemn as misleading

Tesco has been fined £300,000 for mislabelling its strawberries, selling them at "half price" for three months after they were on sale at the full price for just seven days.

The supermarket, which is trying to shed its "big and bad" image, made a £2.3m profit from the promotion after a customer complained to Birmingham trading standards, a court heard.

Judge Michael Chambers said at Birmingham crown court that the case was "shocking by its very nature" because customers had a high degree of trust in national chains.

For seven days in 2011 Tesco sold 400g punnets of strawberries at £3.99, reducing them to £2.99 for a further week before marking them as half price at £1.99 for a further 14 weeks.

The promotion was a breach of the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations Act 2008, which bars retailers from running a promotion for longer than the period over which the product was sold at full price.

Birmingham city council argued that the offer had been presented in a way that could mislead or deceive the average consumer into thinking they were getting a good deal.

It also complained about a further promotion involving the same strawberries in which Tesco offered a free pot of single cream with each punnet but then removed the free cream offer, returning the strawberries to their "half-price" status.

The guilty plea by Tesco followed a preliminary hearing this year when the supermarket argued the council lacked the jurisdiction to proceed outside Birmingham on the case. The court threw out that claim.

Strawberries growing in a polytunnelTesco apologised to the court for the mis-selling, and said its internal processes had been tightened to avoid any repetition. It also agreed to pay Birmingham city council's £65,000 legal bill.

A spokesperson said: "We apologise sincerely for this mistake, which was made in the summer of 2011.

"We sell over 40,000 products in our stores, with thousands on promotion at any one time, but even one mistake is one too many.

"Since then, to make sure this doesn't happen again we've given colleagues additional training and reminded them of their responsibilities to ensure we always adhere to the guidelines on pricing."

On Monday Tesco was selling 454g punnets of British strawberries for £2.

Sajeela Naseer, head of trading standards at the council, said the victory would have benefits for consumers across the country. She added: "It was the council's case, confirmed by Tesco's guilty pleas today, that this was a misleading offer which deceived the purchasers of strawberries over many weeks during the summer of 2011.

"Food pricing, presentation and the depiction of promotional practices is a crucial issue for retailers, and in turn, consumers."

In November last year the Office of Fair Trading tightened its rules on promotions, with Tesco, Sainsbury's, Morrisons, Waitrose, M&S, Aldi, the Co-op and Lidl all signing up to a new code to avoid similar abuses.

The fine is the latest labelling embarrassment for Tesco, which was caught up in the horsemeat scandal after horse DNA was found in its beefburgers. In that case the company attempted to reassure customers by publishing full-page adverts in several newspapers.

Since then Tesco has launched a major new marketing campaign in an attempt to regain consumer confidence. However, some experts have suggested this latest scandal may have dented trust even further.

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Payouts to former Tesco boss Sir Terry Leahy since retirement top £8m

Former CEO has received two tranches of three-year-performance payouts, despite doubts about his legacy

Sir Terry Leahy, the Tesco chief executive who led the supermarket group for 14 years before retiring two years ago, has received almost £8.5m in performance-based payouts since his departure.

The payments, revealed by a Guardian analysis of share awards no longer disclosed in Tesco annual reports, comes against a backdrop of writedowns, profit warnings and mounting criticism of Leahy's strategic legacy. Last year the company revealed its first profits fall in two decades; Fresh & Easy, Leahy's foray into the US, is being scrapped at a cost of £1bn; and £800m has been wiped off the value of the land bank built up by the former chief executive.

The Guardian study found Leahy had received two tranches of three-year-performance payouts worth £2.95m since departing. Tesco's remuneration committee, chaired by Stuart Chambers, has judged the performance targets to be met, or partly met.

In addition, shares worth £5.47m have been released to Leahy from Tesco's "executive incentive scheme" since his departure. These were deferred annual bonus rewards, held by the company for three years before being released to executives. In Leahy's case, however, the release schedule was accelerated because of his departure.

These rewards were not assessed on performance criteria, but the final batch were subject to a "clawback" clause, designed to prevent payments for failure. However, Tesco said clawback was not relevant to Leahy payouts as it was only triggered by a "material misstatement" in Tesco's accounts.

The bulk of the £8.42m in performance bonuses received by Leahy since leaving were paid out between February and July 2012. During that period the company was still reeling from a shock January profits warning that wiped 16%, or £5bn, off the share value of the group in one day. It was reportedly the biggest fall in the stock since Black Monday, during the stock market crash of 1987.

Terry Leahy, former CEO of Tesco. His tenure included the failure of the supermarket group's foray into the US, Fresh & Easy.Shares have recovered some ground , but the stock is still 16% below the price when Leahy departed in March 2011. Meanwhile, over the same period, the wider FTSE 100 index has climbed 6.8%.

Leahy also took with him an £18.4m pension pot when he stood down. In addition he held options over almost 7m shares – all now unlikely to produce a windfall because of the share price slump and the scrapping of Fresh & Easy.

A Tesco spokesman confirmed the Guardian analysis of post-retirement performance payouts to Leahy was accurate. "These awards were made during Terry Leahy's time as Tesco chief executive," he said. "They were awarded and vested in line with the performance criteria set for them. No new awards will be made to Terry Leahy."

In its latest annual report Chambers said the remuneration committee had strengthened performance criteria "to ensure that they remained motivational for management while still representing long-term value creation for shareholders".

The full extent of the re-evaluation of Leahy's legacy was laid bare at the supermarket group's annual shareholder meeting last week when his predecessor Lord MacLaurin, attending as an ordinary shareholder, delivered a swingeing attack from the floor.

"I think you would probably agree with me that when you judge the performance of a chief executive, you not only judge the performance of his day-to-day operation, but you also have to judge his legacy and I think we're all very sad to see the legacy Sir Terry Leahy has left," he said.

MacLaurin later told the Guardian Leahy had "lost the plot", and that the US venture was a "disastrous" enterprise he had counselled against – even though it was to be run by his son-in-law Tim Mason.

He added: "It's also unforgivable that he [Leahy] took money out of the UK business and allowed it to flounder when our rivals were catching up and expanding."

Leahy's successor Phil Clarke – who still occasionally takes informal soundings from MacLaurin on Tesco business – has shied away from direct criticism of his immediate predecessor. However, he has said "the strategy wasn't delivering", claiming Tesco had been "running up the down escalator" with its focus on land purchases.

"Space growth is too fast. More very big stores aren't the answer any longer," he said last April. "Customers are moving faster to smaller stores and to the internet." He promised to "strike a better balance between growth and returns for shareholders".

Two years ago Leahy had appeared to retire on a high when he was feted by outgoing chairman David Reid as "undoubtedly one of the leading businessmen of his generation … [who] has put in place a strategy which can secure the progress of Tesco for years go come."

Former Asda boss Allan Leighton, for a long time an arch rival, also paid tribute. "The test of all great leaders is the legacy they leave. Terry Leahy inherited a company that was the best food retailer in Britain … He has made it into the best food retailer in the world."

No one appeared more sure of Leahy's achievements than himself. "In every business the chief executive wakes up in the morning wondering where the growth will come from," he reflected in valedictory remarks. "And we have answered that question at Tesco."

Article Source : http://www.guardian.co.uk

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Supermarkets face fine of percentage of turnover for mistreating suppliers

Christine Tacon, the new groceries code adjudicator, will be able to arbitrate on contract disputes and investigate complaints

The UK's new supermarket watchdog wants to fine retailers a percentage of their turnover if they mistreat suppliers.

Christine Tacon, the groceries code adjudicator who started work on Tuesday, is able to impose fines and force supermarkets to apologise publicly with ads in national newspapers if they do not treat suppliers fairly. She is in charge of overseeing a legally binding code of practice, put in place more than three years ago, for supermarkets with a turnover of more than £1bn, such as Tesco, Sainsbury's and Asda.

The code does not govern the prices retailers agree with their suppliers, but aims to prevent changes part-way through the contracts. It covers groceries including food, drink and toiletries, but does not include clothing or tobacco.

Christine Tacon, new groceries code adjudicator, will oversee a code of practice governing relations between supermarkets and suppliersSpeaking on her first day in office, Tacon said her first job is to recommend the rules under which investigations would occur and the maximum fines that could be imposed.

Those recommendations are expected to be published in the next few weeks and will then undergo a 12-week consultation. The new system must be in place before Christmas Day, before which MPs will have to approve the maximum fine.

Tacon said she was inclined to base fines on supermarkets' turnover as this was a straightforward approach similar to that used by the Office of Fair Trading. She said: "Fines are there as the ultimate deterrent. I am prepared to use my powers but I hope we don't have to get to that stage."

She has spent several months talking to suppliers ahead of her official appointment this week but will only be able to look into complaints about breaches of the code that occur from her first day in office. She will be able to arbitrate on disputes and investigate complaints made anonymously or by third parties such as the National Farmers' Union.

She will be looking at issues such as supermarkets charging up to £1m to display suppliers' products, or the imposition of fines for customer complaints that have nothing to do with quality of the goods supplied. Tacon argues that such ruses add extra costs to the industry, forcing up prices for shoppers.

Article Source : http://www.guardian.co.uk

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Barclays to sell customer data

Bank tells 13 million customers it is to start selling information on their spending habits to other companies

Barclays is to start selling information about 13 million customers' spending habits to other companies, and has admitted it could share the data with government departments and MPs.

In letters being sent to customers, it is also outlining what details about them it holds and uses which, it said, "may include images of you or recordings of your voice", as well as comments made in interactions with the bank on social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook. Barclay ssaid it may collect "location data derived from any mobile device details you have given us" - suggesting it will be able to pinpoint where in the world a customer is at a particular moment in time.

However, the bank assured customers that any data it passed on to third-party companies would be aggregated to show trends, and that individuals would not be identifiable from it. A spokeswoman said there was "nothing sinister" going on, and added that it would not be profiteering from customers. Like most companies, Barclays has previously used customer data internally, but it has not shared it with third parties before. It is writing to current and savings account customers to let them know about the changes, which will take effect on 9 October.

Barclays said the data would be aggregated to show trends and individuals would not be identifiable

A leaflet details the "new ways" in which Barclays' companies can use customer data, stating: "We can combine information about you with information about other Barclays customers to create reports which we may share with companies outside Barclays. This information is numerical and not personal, and you will never be identifiable on the basis of it." This could include data on how much people spend on different products and services.

The bank said the data could be passed to government departments and MPs – for example, to give them an insight into what was happening in their constituency.

In a statement the bank said: "We only use information in a numerical, anonymised and aggregated way, as is standard practice at many companies. It is not about providing information for sales or marketing use and does not include any personal data."

It said the move was in accordance with industry guidance from the Information Commissioner's Office and the law. "Customers are always able to opt out of marketing activity and their personal data will never be passed on to anybody else without their explicit consent," it added.

The bank said that data relating to where a mobile phone was at a particular time would be used for fraud prevention purposes, and only when a transaction was picked up by its fraud detection systems. It would confirm "at a country level" if the customer was in the region where the suspicious transaction had taken place. Customers will be able to opt out of this if they wish.

Barclays is the latest in a line of companies to come under scrutiny over the way they use customer information. It emerged recently that Tesco is using data about what Clubcard holders buy in its stores to serve targeted ads to online users of its new movie streaming site, Clubcard TV. Tesco also plans to use its Clubcard data to tackle obesity by offering customers "tailored suggestions for how they could shop more healthily".

Financial companies have different policies when it comes to the use of people's data. For example, MasterCard states in its global privacy policy that it will "perform data analyses" and offers the chance to opt out on its website. Otherwise, people are automatically opted in.

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Multinational CEOs tell David Cameron to rein in tax avoidance rhetoric

Burberry, Tesco, Vodafone and BAE Systems join CBI chief in lobbying PM to stop moralising on tax ahead of G8 talks

The bosses of some of Britain's largest multinational corporations have urged David Cameron to stop moralising and rein in his rhetoric on tax avoidance ahead of a G8 summit next month.

Chief executives of companies such as Burberry, Tesco, Vodafone, BAE Systems, Prudential and GSK were keen to take a final opportunity to lobby the prime minister in advance of the meeting of political leaders in Northern Ireland.

Cameron has pledged to use Britain's G8 presidency to tackle aggressive tax avoidance by multinationals, but is also keen to heed the counsel of his business advisory group, which he met with on Monday.

Also present was Google's chairman, Eric Schmidt, despite the internet search firm coming under fierce attack from MPs last week because of its tax arrangements.

The president of the Confederation of British Industry, Sir Roger Carr, who was at the meeting, was among those who have taken issue with Cameron's attacks on the ethics of big business tax engineering.

Sir Roger Carr, CBI chairman, said at an earlier meeting that tax avoidance "cannot be about morality – there are no absolutes"

 During a speech earlier in the day at a London event organised by Oxford University's Said business school, Carr said: "It is only in recent times that tax has become an issue on the public agenda – Starbucks, Google, Amazon – businesses that the general public know and believe they understand; businesses with a brand that become a perfect political football, the facts difficult to digest; public passions easy to inflame."

In what appeared to be pointed criticism of increasingly firm rhetoric from Cameron on multinational tax engineering, Carr insisted tax avoidance "cannot be about morality – there are no absolutes".

In January the prime minister used a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, to put a marker down on questions of tax structuring by big business. "Some forms of avoidance have become so aggressive that I think it is right to say these are ethical issues," he said, urging multinationals to "wake up and smell the coffee".

Carr said: "Tax payments are not, and should not be … a payment viewed as a down payment on social acceptability, or a contribution made by choice in order to defuse public anger or political attack."

The CBI boss, who is being talked of as a successor to Dick Olver as chairman of BAE Systems, invited the G8 to consider three points in relation to tax reform:

• Avoiding the moral debate – "it's all about the rules".

• Fixing the rules on an international stage, not unilaterally.

• Consulting on proposed changes with business.

A Downing Street spokesman said the specific controversy generated by Google's tax affairs was not raised during the meeting with business leaders, though discussions did focus on "explaining the tax and tax transparency part of the G8 agenda".

Also speaking at the Said business school event was Margaret Hodge MP, chair of the public accounts committee and one of parliament's most outspoken critics of tax avoidance. With Starbucks and the big four accountancy firms in attendance, she said: "Your time has now come on accountability. You are now being asked to answer certain questions and it's important that we all engage.

"One could argue that the way some companies organise their affairs is anti-competitive to many British companies. Especially if you look at the way Amazon arranges its affairs."

On Revenue & Customs' appearance before her committee last week, she added: "Their approach, when they came to parliament last week was complacent and patronising, an attitude that actually didn't help take the committee forward. I don't think it helped members work closely together across my committee.

"In my opinion they are not aggressive enough. These are issues of how you judge individual companies, but at the moment I'm not clear how HMRC makes its judgments. So toughen up, HMRC."

Other attendees at the event were representatives of retailer Marks & Spencer, which was accused of running its online business in a similar structure to Amazon's, and pharmacy group Alliance Boots, which recently relocated its headquarters to Switzerland.

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Article source : http://www.guardian.co.uk