The rise of many national political parties across the EU has been focused on their views that immigration is a drain on the resources of the country where immigrants are settling.

However recent research be the University College London's Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration which was published in the Guardian this week suggests a rather different scenario to the one that is commonly accepted. In fact they believe that immigration has contributed £4.96 billion to the UK economy since 2011.

However, not all people are convinced and the people at Migrant Watch who campaign to reduce immigration believe that the use of the data has been “selective”.

So perhaps the real truth is that no matter which side is making the argument “selective” data can and is used to substantiate the various claims – phew where does leave the average person in the street when it comes to making decisions based on the words of politicians, newspapers and the media? I think I may just stay sitting on the fence!

For more information follow the link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-29910497

Disruptive innovation focused on enhanced customer experience in order to adapt to shifting consumer preferences will drive retail brands revenues in 2015.

"E-commerce, m-commerce and in-store commerce will evolve closer into simply commerce."

"The battle between brick-and-mortar stores and digital channels such as online and mobile will be more reduced in intensity, and instead, each and every channelwill be designed to direct the customer down the most likely path to conversion."

"Access to APIs will pave the way to more personalised consumer experiences so that merchants can pursue open APIs to develop more predictive apps that allow sharing of information and leveraging new functionality in real time to better personalise the user experience."

"Mobile device makers will redesign hardware and software strategies to specifically cater to mobile commerce. In response to consumer demand for streamlined commerce, device makers will make strategic decisions based on improving geo-tagging, integrating payment technology, user authentication, messaging and inter-app communication."

More info here.

More than two-thirds of UK consumers (70.7%) still do not have a contactless-enabled card in their wallet.

"Card distribution, security issues and regional awareness are the three main challenges for contactless payments in the UK."

"The group with the highest number of enabled cards were those based in London. However, this figure only reached 37.2%, which means that over 60% of Londoners still do not have a contactless card. Nottingham and Sheffield had achieved 30% penetration, whilst Wellingborough, located in the London commuter-belt, fell behind at 23.5%."

"Nearly half of all respondents viewed contactless cards as one of the least secure methods of payment (46.8%), behind mobile payments (71.3%). 64.6% of respondents in Wellingborough feel the technology is the least secure, whilst just 45 minutes away by train in London, this figure falls to 39.2%. Out of the total number respondents that did have a contactless card, just under half of them had chosen to make a tap-and-go payment within the last month."

"Although nearly three-quarters of respondents stated that they know what contactless payments are (73.6%), almost half of the respondents in Wellingborough do not (43.5%) compared to just 17.3% of Londoners."

More info here.