Friday newspaper round-up: Worldpay, house prices, Uber, Woodford

Worldpay, the UK payments processing company, is breaking into the small business lending market in a move to provide thousands of customers with flexible loans. The payments processor, which this week entered the FTSE 100 less than two months after an initial public offering, has launched a financing scheme to offer its 300,000 small business customers cash advances. – Financial Times

David Cameron has given up hope of a new membership deal for Britain at this month’s EU summit after European allies reacted with alarm to him stepping up demands for treaty changes to ban benefits for new migrant workers. At a series of meetings this week the British prime minister told EU leaders he had “changed his mind” and now needed immediate treaty revisions enshrining a four-year benefit ban if he was to campaign to keep Britain in the EU. – Financial Times

House prices in the UK are set to increase by between 4% and 6% in 2016, as increasing affordability problems and the prospects of an interest rate rise put the brakes on the property market, the country’s biggest mortgage lender has forecast. Demand for property has increased in recent months, but the number of homes coming on to the market has remained at a record low. Surveyors and property websites have reported a shortage of properties for sale which is driving up prices, and described a vicious circle as potential sellers wait until there are more homes available before putting theirs on the market. – Guardian

Cerberus, the US private equity group that recently bought £13bn of former Northern Rock mortgages, has been accused in the Northern Ireland assembly of paying kickbacks to help it win a £1.1bn property assets portfolio. Sinn Féin’s Máirtin Ó Muilleoir alleged in a finance committee hearing in Stormont on Thursday that Cerberus paid illegal kickbacks to fixers for inside information and introduction to contacts. – Guardian

Uber is looking to raise as much as $2.1bn in a financing round that would value the car-booking company at $62.5bn, according to reports. Te taxi-hailing app has filed paperwork in Delaware detailing the fundraising plans, Bloomberg claimed. - Telegraph

US pharmaceuticals giant Pfizer is planning to close a facility in Britain, with the loss of 120 jobs. he company said on Thursday that the move is in response to a decision to cut investment in research and development for pain drugs. fizer's site in Granta Park, Cambridge, will be hit as it specialises in pain medicine. – Telegraph

Changes to the tax treatment of buy-to-let landlords have already led to a surge in the number borrowing through companies and could lead to average monthly rents rising by an extra £55, according to research. eorge Osborne announced in the budget that mortgage interest relief would be restricted for such landlords to the basic rate of tax of 20 per cent and that the policy would be phased in over four years from 2017. – The Times

Neil Woodford has defended his loss-making investment in a cancer treatment company accused of financial impropriety and sued by shareholders. The fund manager said that Northwest Biotherapeutics had hit a “bump in the road that needs to be addressed”. I a blog post to clients, Mr Woodford, who has not yet answered questions about the situation, said it was “too early to pass judgment” on Northwest, in which he has invested $180 million to buy a 28 per cent stake. - The Times