Friday newspaper round-up: Nationwide, Shein, Jes Staley

(Sharecast News) - Every little helps, so they say. Nationwide building society announced this week that it would be dishing out £50 mini-windfalls to more than 12 million members. And there should be more "free cash" coming down the track for many of them, as Nationwide hopes to announce its third annual "Fairer Share" payout in May. This would follow payments of £100 that were made in 2023 and 2024. - Guardian British food and drink exports to the EU have tumbled by more than a third since Brexit, according to new trade body figures highlighting how bureaucratic barriers have changed the relationship between the UK and its most important trading partner. Products including whisky, chocolate and cheese remain popular with EU customers but overall food export volumes to the bloc fell to 6.37bn kg in 2024, representing a 34% decline compared with 2019 levels, the Food and Drink Federation (FDF) found. - Guardian

Sir Keir Starmer is poised to relax a planned ban on popular hybrid cars amid warnings that electric vehicle (EV) sales targets are squeezing manufacturers too tightly. The Department for Transport was expected to ban some hybrids from sale after 2030, when selling pure petrol and diesel cars will also become illegal. However, sources said it was reconsidering the plans following intensive lobbying by the industry. - Telegraph

US politicians have said the special relationship is being undermined by a "cloak of secrecy" around Yvette Cooper's order that Apple install an iPhone back door. Five members of Congress have written to Lord Justice Singh, the president of the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT), urging British officials to lift a gagging order ahead of Apple challenging the order. - Telegraph

The Chinese fast-fashion company Shein has for the first time confirmed plans to float on the stock market, with London believed to be the preferred location. Donald Tang, the Singapore-based company's executive chairman, said Shein wanted to be a public company "to embrace the ... accountability and transparency of being a public company", in an interview with The Times in London. - The Times

The former boss of Barclays denied that one of his daughters had acted for him as a "vehicle of communication" with the convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein while he was running the FTSE 100 bank. The Upper Tribunal in London was shown emails on Thursday sent between Alexa Staley and Epstein from March 2016 to February 2017 in which the sex offender asked her to pass on messages to her father. Jes Staley, 68, maintains that he severed all communication with Epstein in October 2015, before taking charge of what is one of Britain's biggest banks in December that year. The Financial Conduct Authority, the City regulator, alleges that his adult daughter acted as intermediary for the two men. - The Times