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By Will Sturgeon, 30 November 2000 09:15

NEWS Intelligent Finance - IF.com - will now be launched at the end of the year amid a flurry of prime time television advertising that claims the service represents a revolution in financial services, and the company is confident that this deadline will be met. Intelligent Finance has set targets of developing a 500,000-strong customer base within the first year and hitting profitability within five years. Lloyds TSB has admitted that its own internet bank, Evolvebank.com, will be gradually "phased" in to the UK market - though no details were given as to what this entailed or the reasons behind it... The Financial Times reports that Orange has lost out on a Norwegian 3G licence. Having been present and represented in other allocation processes across Europe the France Telecom owned mobile operator was on of three losing candidates in the beauty contest process that raised $85.5m. The Norwegian government awarded three of the four licences to domestic operators: the state-owned Telenor mobile operator NetCom and Enitel, who was part of a consortium with Finland's Sonera. The non-Norwegian winner was Sweden's Tele2... Finally it appears the news yesterday that Sema was parting company with one of its directors over share trading irregularities may prove to be just the tip of the iceberg. The Financial Times reports that attention is now turning to Pierre Bonelli, CEO of Sema, as investors ask how it was possible for a board member to sell shares during a closed period without intervention from the company. Investors are also likely to raise outspoken concerns as to the original purchase of LHS - the now departed director, Hartmut Lademacher's company - bought by Sema after predictions of healthy growth, which now transpire to be ill-founded as LHS revenues have nearly halved during the second and third quarters of the fiscal year. It would seem there is more to come...