Here are the business stories making the headlines across Scotland and the UK this morning.
UK should 'team up' with Canada in new Europe alliance, Canadian minister tells BBC
The UK should "team up" with a proposed economic alliance between Canada and Europe, Canadian Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne has said.
"This is all about the substance, to build an alliance of the future," he told the BBC. "The world has changed. America has changed. So we need to change."
Champagne also gave a frank assessment of the Canada-US trade war after a deal collapsed last month, saying the country had "stood up for our industries, our workers, our country" by imposing tariffs.
Nicola Sturgeon: Wargame TV show exposes our ‘threadbare’ defence
Nicola Sturgeon has said a television docudrama about a mock Russian attack on the UK, in which she plays a fictional deputy prime minister, shines a light on Britain’s “threadbare” defences.
The former first minister was speaking about The Wargame, in which she is one of a number of real-life political figures taking part in a simulated scenario responding to an attack on UK soil.
“The intention of the show is not to scare people, but to make people think,” she told Times Radio.
Pro-Putin party set to retain power as Ukraine drones hit Russia
The pro-Kremlin United Russia party was on course to achieve a landslide in heavily-choreographed elections to Russia’s lower house of parliament on Sunday evening, despite a major Ukraine drone attack on Moscow overnight.
Three people were killed in the Moscow region as the city’s mayor said it had experienced the biggest Ukrainian drone attack yet as voters went to the polls. Sunday was the final day of voting, which began on Friday.
“The biggest attack by enemy drones has been repelled. Since yesterday, more than 1,600 drones have been shot down across all fronts. Of these, 450 were approaching Moscow,” Sergei Sobyanin said on Telegram.
Read more in The Times.
Dragons’ Den cashback mortgage app closes $10m funding round
A fast-growing fintech company backed by three investors from BBC1’s Dragons’ Den has closed a $10 million series A funding round.
Sprive, founded by two former Goldman Sachs bankers in 2019, is an app designed to help homeowners pay off their mortgages faster by offering cashback on spending at retailers such as Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Waitrose through digital gift cards. The cash is then put towards the mortgage.
Sprive also scans for cheaper mortgage deals, alerting customers when it is the best time to switch. It is connected to 16 lenders in the UK, including all of the high street banks and major building societies.
Find the full story in The Times.