Tuesday newspaper round-up: TV subscriptions, Unilever, NatWest

(Sharecast News) - UK consumers cut back on groceries, clothes shopping and eating out last month but streaming and pay TV subscriptions jumped as cash-conscious viewers switched to nights in. The return of big hit series such as Succession, The Mandalorian and Ted Lasso fuelled a healthy 4.1% increase in spend on digital content and subscriptions in March, the highest year-on-year rise in five months, according to Barclays' regular snapshot of consumer credit and debit card use. - Guardian The Treasury spent almost half a million pounds on an unused emergency scheme for energy traders launched by Liz Truss that was quietly closed earlier this year. The energy markets financing scheme (EMFS) was devised by the Treasury and the Bank of England as a £40bn government-guaranteed backstop fund to provide stability for energy and financial markets. - Guardian

An era of ultra-low interest rates will return as soaring inflation becomes a historical blip, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has said. In a boon to homeowners, the Washington-based organisation, said that an ageing population coupled with low productivity will tame inflation and lead to interest rates returning to pre-pandemic levels. - Telegraph

Unilever needs to sharpen up operationally and demonstrate how its strategy for buying and selling businesses adds value, a large shareholder has said. Speaking before the arrival in July of Hein Schumacher, 51, the new chief executive, Sue Noffke, head of UK equities at Schroders, said the Dove-to-Domestos group needed to get better at proving it could exploit its distribution channels and marketing expertise to extract the benefit from deals. - The Times

Marshall Wace has built the biggest short-selling bet against NatWest ever recorded by the City regulator as fears about the health of the global banking system cause turbulence in shares throughout the sector. Disclosures to the Financial Conduct Authority show that Marshall Wace, one of the world's biggest hedge funds with about $61 billion of assets, has taken a 0.61 per cent net short position in shares of the taxpayer-backed lender. - The Times