UK mortgage brokers expect interest rates to jump March 7, 2025 According to a new study, over two-thirds of UK mortgage brokers expect interest rates to stop falling and resume their upward trend by the beginning of next year. Butterfield Mortgages surveyed 300 brokers and 69 per cent said they believed the Bank of England base rate would be higher than the current level of 4.5 per cent [...]
Rate-setter calls on Bank of England to adopt ‘activist’ approach to rates March 6, 2025 The Bank of England should adopt a more activist approach to setting interest rates in order to deal with the “substantial volatility” affecting geopolitics and financial markets, a rate-setter has said. Catherine Mann, an external member of the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), argued that rate-setters should be more willing to vote for more radical [...]
Week in Business: Who will Rachel Reeves blame for higher taxes in Spring Statement? March 6, 2025 City AM Editor Christian May looks at the biggest business stories in his weekly video, today focusing on the UK economy and upcoming Spring Statement.
Reeves is gearing up for a blame game March 6, 2025 You can hear the spin a mile away; as the Chancellor’s team prepares for the Spring Statement the groundwork is being laid. Despite the fact that the inevitable consequences of the government’s multi-billion pound tax raid on businesses have been clear for months, with economic growth suffocated, sources close to the Chancellor are telling the [...]
Finance for Ukraine: Scrap regulations that ban investment in defence March 6, 2025 There has historically been a nervousness about investing in defence, but at this pivotal moment for the security of our continent, it’s time to change ESG rules that are holding the sector back, say MPs Alex Baker and Luke Charters Britain stands at a pivotal moment, shaped by three years of Russia’s illegal invasion of [...]
Bank of England warns ‘age of uncertainty’ stopping rapid rate cuts March 5, 2025 An “age of uncertainty”, especially over the path of inflation, means that rapid interest rate cuts are unlikely to be coming to the UK, top Bank of England officials have said. Huw Pill, chief economist at the Bank of England, said the central bank was unlikely to make “larger and more rapid cuts to interest [...]
Government told to improve education for young entrepreneurs March 5, 2025 A new report has exposed the education system’s failure to boost business knowledge among aspiring entrepreneurs. The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) and Simply Business have called on the Government to incorporate business education into the national curriculum, in a bid to unlock “a gold mine of enterprise potential”. The study revealed just a third [...]
HSBC’s ‘never had it so good’ say Barclays analysts March 4, 2025 Barclays analysts have said HSBC “never had it so good” as they predicted further growth and upsides for the FTSE 100 lender. Following the lender’s strong full-year performance, the analysts upgraded HSBC’s share price target by 28 per cent to 1,200p. The lender pocketed a pre-tax profit of £25.6bn in 2024, up from £24bn in [...]
Meet the British volunteers trying to get the Marshall Islands into a World Cup March 4, 2025 The Marshall Islands is the last country without a national football team but a clutch of enthusiastic Britons are trying to rectify that – and get them into a Fifa World Cup campaign. Exeter may not seem an obvious nerve centre for a mission to get a tiny Micronesian nation into Fifa, but then this [...]
One in five Brits in ‘high financial stress’ as economic woes deepen March 3, 2025 Public confidence in the UK economy has taken another hit, with the latest City AM Freshwater Strategy poll showing little hope for the near future. The polling revealed nearly one in five voters, 18 per cent, could not pay an unexpected £500 bill, categorising them as in “high financial stress”. 35 per cent said their [...]