Thursday newspaper round-up: Carillion collapse, Bitcoin, Barclays, RBS

Taxpayers will be forced to hand over nearly £200bn to contractors under private finance deals for at least 25 years, according to a report by Whitehall’s spending watchdog. In the wake of the collapse of public service provider Carillion, the National Audit Office found little evidence that government investment in more than 700 existing public-private projects has delivered financial benefits. – Guardian

Bitcoin has all the hallmarks of a classic speculative bubble and even after almost halving in value in a matter of weeks it still has further to fall, according to a leading team of economists. As regulators in South Korea again signalled on Thursday that they were considering a ban on cryptocurrency exchanges, Capital Economics also dismissed claims that bitcoin and its imitators could replace established currencies as “rubbish”. – Guardian

Topshop owner Arcadia has told suppliers it is imposing a 2pc discount on future orders and orders it has already placed, blaming the changing retail environment. Arcadia's chief executive Ian Grabiner said, in a letter to suppliers, that the group had "absorbed significant costs in technology, distribution and people". – Telegraph

There is little evidence that handing public contracts to private organisations offers value for money for taxpayers, according a National Audit Office report published days after major government partner Carillion collapsed. There are currently 716 private finance initiative (PFI) projects either under construction or in operation, with a total value of £59.4bn. Repayment for these projects cost the taxpayer £10.3bn last year, the report found. – Telegraph

MPs are seeking answers from regulators and the trustees of the giant Barclays staff retirement fund over plans to allow the core UK bank to walk away from responsibility for honouring pension promises to 200,000 people. Frank Field, chairman of the Commons work and pensions committee, said that he would be writing to the Pensions Regulator and the trustees after seeing coverage of the issue in The Times. – The Times

Staff at Royal Bank of Scotland’s rogue restructuring division were urged to give struggling businesses enough rope to hang themselves in a damning internal memo released yesterday by the Treasury select committee. The memo by an unnamed manager urges staff to focus on “basket cases”, which were “time-consuming but remunerative”, and encourages them to find every possible way of squeezing fees from them. Entitled Just Hit Budget!, it includes a section called “16 Ways to generate income”. In another section, it said: “Rope: Sometimes you need to let customers hang themselves.” – The Times