Americans spent slightly more in February but the gain still left consumer spending growing at a modest pace, held back by severe winter weather. The commerce department says consumer spending rose 0.3% in February following a 0.2% rise in January. The spending increases would have been even weaker except for a surge in spending on utility bills. In February, spending on durable goods such as autos actually dropped as consumers stayed away from auto dealerships. Service spending, which covers utility payments, rose. Income increased 0.3% in February, the same amount as January.
Walmart sues Visa for $5 bn for rigging card fees
The world?s largest retailer Walmart has sued credit card giant Visa for more than $5 billion for conspiring with banks to fix fees that merchants pay for accepting Visa card payments. In the suit filed this week in Arkansas, where Walmart is based, the retailer said Visa worked with some of the largest US banks ?to illegally fix the interchange fees and inflate the network fees that Walmart and other merchants pay on Visa charge card transactions?. It said that Visa and the banks as well worked together to set rules that prevent retailers from protecting themselves against such fees.
Sony names new CFO, Masaru Kato to quit
Sony, which is struggling to bring its electronics division into the black, said on Friday it would appoint Kenichiro Yoshida as new chief financial officer on April 1, replacing Masaru Kato. It said the appointment was a planned succession. ?After discussing the matter over the last four months, we decided it would be appropriate to appoint Yoshida at the beginning of the new financial year,? said Sony spokeswoman Yo Kikuchi. ?We had already been considering a succession plan and Yoshida had been appointed deputy CFO last December 1.? Yoshida joined Sony in 1983 and previously worked for So-net.
BlackBerry posts loss as sales keep sliding
BlackBerry reported a quarterly loss on Friday as smartphone sales continued to slide across all regions. The Waterloo, Ontario-based company reported a net loss of $423 million, or 80 cents a share, for the fourth quarter ended March 1. That compared with a year-earlier profit of $98 million, or $19 cents a share. Revenue fell to $976 million from $2.68 billion.
Intesa SanPaolo bank posts $7-billion Q4 loss
Italian bank Intesa SanPaolo has posted a 5.2-billion-euro ($7 billion) fourth-quarter loss due to a huge write-down to clean up its books for a rigorous stress test. The bank took a write-down of 5.2 billion euros in the quarter, which widened the quarterly loss from 83 million euros last year. For the year, the bank said Friday its losses were 4.55 billion euros, compared with earnings of 1.6 billion euros last year.