Mega Monday

Today is apparently the busiest day for online shopping, when we've all been round the shops and failed to find that crucial present for husband/wife/Auntie Mavis. The forecast to be spent online is for somewhere in the region of £320 million - and that's just today! The internet trade body IMRG says the UK's Christmas online retail sales could reach £13.6bn ($19.9bn) and it predicts the peak shopping hour will take place between 1300-1400 GMT when £28m may be spent online in an hour.

Buying isn't top of the agenda for most small businesses at present, but it does look as though the banks are making an effort to make purchasing easier for those that are spending. HSBC this weekend launched a £1bn fund for the UK's battered small business sector as part of a £3.4bn fund for small firms worldwide. The bank said the fund would be available to small and medium-sized enterprises as loans for working capital and came on top of its day-to-day lending.

The massive cash fund emerged after a week of mounting political pressure on banks to pass on recent base rate cuts to small business and to make more cash available to struggling small business owners.

Microsoft Financing is doing its bit too, for growing companies which have been around for a year or so and need to invest in order to grow. Until 26 December, qualifying companies can finance their IT solution with zero payments for six months, plus benefit from a reduced interest rate on the Open licence component and certain Select or Enterprise Agreement licence components of proposed new solutions, fixed to the UK Bank Base Rate at the time of booking (currently just 2%, the lowest since 1951).