McDonald's spent a good portion of last year in the U.K. promoting exercise for kids with tie-ins to the 2012 London Olympics. It also introduced a fruit-juice-based drink called Fruitizz as part of its Happy Meal revamp.

Now, McDonald's U.K. is pivoting to feed kids' minds as well. It has launched a new campaign called Happy Readers to put millions of kids' books into the hands of families and to help make reading fun.Continue reading...

Barclays continues to innovate by taking a leading role in mobile payments in Europe. Having just launched the Pingit mobile payments app, it's now bringing contactless payments to Barclaycard, the UK's first credit card. Now, its 12 million Visa Barclaycard credit card customers can look forward to PayTag, a free sticker that enables mobile contactless transactions at more than 100,000 terminals. 

The easy-to-use PayTag sticker aims to spur the usage use of smartphones for small purchases, increasing the reach of the Quick Tap NFC (Near Field Communication) service the bank operates in partnership with mobile network operator Orange.Continue reading...