Monday newspaper round-up: Scams, Aviva, retailers

(Sharecast News) - Anti-scam campaign groups are calling for police forces to be much tougher on fraudsters, who they claim are scamming millions from victims in "a penalty-free crime". The pleas are being made just days after the UK government announced it is working on an "expanded" fraud strategy as part of a "robust response" to surging reported fraud rates, which rose by 19% last year according to the Office for National Statistics. - Guardian France has accused Donald Trump of "interference" after the White House demanded that European companies working with the US government drop diversity schemes. Companies in France and other EU countries have received letters in recent days warning that Mr Trump's executive order on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) schemes applied to companies outside the United States. - Telegraph

Government departments will be asked to fund loss-making projects backed by Rachel Reeves's National Wealth Fund even as the Chancellor demands deep cuts to Whitehall spending. Treasury documents reveal departments will be asked to pick up the tab for any projects supported by the sovereign wealth fund that are relevant to their brief and "intentionally loss-making". - Telegraph

Aviva has resurrected controversial plans to cancel £450 million of its preference shares seven years after a prior attempt erupted into a major City row - and has immediately run into renewed opposition. Financial advisers have again hit out at the insurer for potentially forcibly buying in the preference shares from retail investors in spite of their being marketed on the front cover of the original prospectuses as "irredeemable". - The Times

Retailers' optimism about their profits and growth for the year ahead has reached a near-decade high amid a sustained revival in business confidence since the October budget, a survey on Monday shows. According to the Lloyds Business Barometer, confidence among retailers leapt to its highest level since August 2015 in March. The bank's sentiment index for the sector rose by seven points to 58 per cent, much higher than the overall business confidence reading of 49 per cent, which was still a seven-month high and unchanged from the previous month. - The Times