Mergers and takeover excitement on Wall Street pushed stocks up stateside helping the Footsie to a 14‑year high yesterday.

For now, small businesses affected by flooding are getting plenty of help. A £10m scheme unveiled by the Government last week follows previous announcements of official support, ranging from business rates relief to extensions of the deadlines that normally apply for filing company accounts.

Terry Simmonds of the UK Small Business Directory says he was misunderstood. He insists a recent online post was a spoof inspired by a conversation he’d had with another male website entrepreneur rather prone to sexism – and not the insult to female businesswomen it was widely interpreted as being.

New year, same old story. Despite endless government promises to crack down on late payments, it looks as if many small businesses will spend a good part of 2014 chasing larger businesses for money they are owed.

The wheels of the European Commission sometimes grind slowly, but the Horizon 2020 project seems set to deliver valuable benefits to innovative small businesses in the technology and manufacturing sectors.

Britain’s failure to build sufficient numbers of mid-sized businesses capable of matching Germany’s famous Mittelstand companies has been a long-held frustration for policymakers of all persuasions – it’s encouraging, therefore, to see them doing something about it.

Has Britain found its niche in the dotcom 2.0 boom? The growing number of financial technology businesses that are based in the UK but successful in the global marketplace suggests it just might have done – and rightly so, given its importance as a financial services hub.

Lawrence Tomlinson’s report on RBS lending found there was evidence it had let some small businesses default

Last week’s Twitter IPO is yet another reminder that Britain isn’t producing technology businesses that are capable of reaching the same dizzying heights as the social media giants of California.

The biggest lie is that lending at the bank disappointed as small firms didn’t want to borrow

‘It isn’t their job to tell people what they should or shouldn’t invest their money in’

Pension providers... have become  increasingly picky about whom they want to accept

The City withdrew funds from Royal Bank of Scotland yesterday on concerns it isn’t as profitable as some had hoped.Analysts at Bank of America Merrill Lynch took the red pen to the taxpayer-owned bank on fears of falling margins on mortgages, dividend anxiety in relation to capital-ratio requirements, plus the possible issues of its government-enforced bad bank, US housing claims looming and EU Libor settlements.

There is reason to believe that demand for credit will once again begin to increase

Initiatives like these can sometimes feel gimmicky, but in  the US... the results have been tangible