UK banks report more defaults – and it’s likely to get worse April 13, 2023 Banks and building societies have seen an uptick in defaults in both secured and unsecured lending – a trend that is expected to continue over the next three months, according to new data published by the Bank of England today. In the three months to February, UK lenders included in the Bank’s credit conditions [...]
UK economy stalls in February but is just about on track to dodge recession in early 2023 April 13, 2023 Britain is just about on track to dodge a recession in the first half of this year, defying gloomy predictions from experts heading into 2023 that the economy would suffer the largest slump in recent memory, figures out today show. Gross domestic product (GDP) – which measures the value of all goods and services produced [...]
Jeremy Hunt tells Washington that UK predictions are ‘much better’ than IMF doomsayers April 13, 2023 Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has said he is “confident” the UK will beat the poor growth forecasts predicted by the IMF. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said earlier this year that the UK economy will shrink by 0.3 per cent this year and grow by just one per cent in 2024. Speaking to Bloomberg in Washington [...]
Bank authorities must ‘learn lessons’ from March’s mini-crisis, top regulator warns April 12, 2023 The world’s top financial authorities need to learn the lessons from the Silicon Valley Bank’s (SVB) collapse, the chair of a major global regulatory body warned today, hinting at the need for more stringent bank rules to prevent such chaos in the future. Klaas Knot, chair of the Financial Stability Board (FSB), noted the financial [...]
Andrew Bailey stresses Bank of England focused on inflation fight rather than Credit Suisse and SVB fallout April 12, 2023 The recent run of chaos in the global financial system that has laid waste to Credit Suisse and Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) has not distracted the Bank of England from trying to tame inflation in the UK, the monetary authority’s chief said today. Speaking at an event at the International Monetary Fund’s spring meeting, Andrew [...]
PM Rishi Sunak lays out plans for biggest sporting event ever hosted by UK and Ireland April 12, 2023 Euro 2028 will be “the biggest sporting event our islands have ever jointly staged”, says Prime Minster Rishi Sunak, after the UK and Ireland confirmed details of their bid to stage the international football tournament. England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland today formally submitted their proposal to governing body Uefa, which [...]
UK debt burden to top size of whole economy putting Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt pledge at risk, IMF forecasts April 12, 2023 Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt are on course to oversee the UK’s debt burden swelling to more than the size of the entire economy, putting one of the pair’s five pledges to taxpayers in peril, according to new forecasts out today. Britain’s debt to GDP ratio is tipped to climb to just over 101 per [...]
Recession clouds lift over UK jobs market as hiring begins to recover April 12, 2023 Recession clouds are receding from the UK jobs market as companies gradually regain confidence about hiring workers following a batch of better than expected economic data since the turn of the year, new figures out today reveal. Firms are dipping their toes back in the recruitment market, lured by household spending holding up better than [...]
Megan Greene to replace Silvana Tenreyro on Bank of England’s rate-setting committee this summer April 11, 2023 Megan Greene has been appointed by Chancellor Jeremy Hunt to the Bank of England’s interest rate-setting committee, replacing top dove Silvana Tenreyro from 5 July. Greene will join the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) from consultancy Kroll, where she has been global chief economist and a regular columnist for the Financial Times. The Treasury announced [...]
IMF: UK economy to toy with recession this year – and fall to the bottom of global growth leaderboard April 11, 2023 Britain is steering toward the bottom of the G7 economic growth table this year and will toy with a recession for most of 2023, the world’s economic watchdog warned today. UK gross domestic product is tipped to shrink 0.3 per cent per cent in 2023, the weakest performance of any economy in the group of [...]