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UK inflation unexpectedly accelerated in February, adding to pressure on the Bank of England to raise interest rates again at its meeting on Thursday. The annual rate of consumer price inflation rose to 10.4 per cent in February, the Office for National Statistics said on Wednesday. That was up from 10.1 per cent in January

UBS’s rescue of Credit Suisse is expected to result in tens of thousands of job cuts, with Switzerland’s financial sector already bracing for a heavy hit from the contentious takeover. Credit Suisse’s domestic business and its investment bank, which collectively employ more than 30,000 staff, are expected to bear the brunt of the cuts, according

A unit of New York Community Bancorp has agreed to buy “substantially all” deposits and some loan portfolios of the collapsed Signature Bank, the US federal deposit agency announced on Sunday. From Monday, Flagstar Bank will acquire 40 former Signature branches, which will be rebranded under its name, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation said. The

Credit Suisse, UBS and their key regulators are racing to thrash out a deal on the historic merger of Switzerland’s two biggest banks as soon as Saturday evening, people familiar with the situation told the Financial Times. The Swiss National Bank and regulator Finma have told international counterparts that they regard a deal with UBS

BlackRock has drawn up a rival bid for Credit Suisse that would trump a plan blessed by the Swiss central bank for UBS to acquire its struggling rival this weekend, four people with knowledge of the matter told the Financial Times. The US investment giant has evaluated a number of options and talked to other

The largest US banks have banded together to deposit $30bn into First Republic Bank in an attempt to bolster its finances and contain the fallout from the collapse of two big lenders in the past week. JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup and Wells Fargo will each deposit $5bn into First Republic, a California-based lender.

Credit Suisse shares rebounded sharply on Thursday after the lender revealed plans to borrow up to SFr50bn ($54bn) from the Swiss central bank and buy back about SFr3bn of its debt in an attempt to boost liquidity and calm investors. The Swiss National Bank had said on Wednesday it was willing to provide a liquidity

Jeremy Hunt will on Wednesday announce billions of pounds to boost business investment and measures to bolster Britain’s workforce, including a big expansion in free childcare, in a “Budget for growth”. The chancellor has pledged that business will be the main beneficiary of any tax cuts in his Budget, but he is constrained by a

Shares of Japan’s biggest banks dropped sharply on Tuesday as global markets reacted to a US banking sector sell-off and uncertainty over interest rates in the wake of the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank. Traders in Tokyo said they were expecting a second day of massive equity market support from the Bank of Japan to

HSBC on Monday averted a crisis in Britain’s tech sector by rescuing Silicon Valley Bank’s UK arm, a dramatic fire sale concluded after all-night talks led by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and the Bank of England. HSBC emerged overnight as the leading white-knight bidder for SVB UK, paying a symbolic £1 for the bank. HSBC

The UK chancellor is preparing a dramatic intervention to provide a cash lifeline to scores of tech businesses next week as he seeks to contain the damage caused by the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank. Jeremy Hunt was looking to “avoid or minimise damage to some our most promising companies in the UK”, the Treasury

Silicon Valley start-ups are scrambling to pay staff and identify sources of back-up funding after regulators stepped in and shut down Silicon Valley Bank on Friday morning, stranding deposits that serve as the lifeblood of many early-stage technology companies. The bank was the 16th largest in the US and a central part of the Silicon

Investors wiped $52.4bn off the market value of the four largest US banks by assets on Thursday amid a widespread sell-off of financial stocks that analysts linked to investor fears over the value of lenders’ bond portfolios. The sell-off in JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup and Wells Fargo appeared to have been sparked by

JPMorgan Chase is suing Jes Staley, a former top executive, in an attempt to make him liable for any penalties the US bank might have to pay if it is found to have facilitated Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking crimes in two high-profile lawsuits. Staley, who is alleged in the lawsuits to have “personally observed” Epstein

The head of one of Britain’s largest insurers has decried the “perpetual drift” of companies away from London’s stock market, saying that a low-growth economy and political infighting had eroded the UK’s appeal. The decisions last week by CRH, the world’s largest building materials group, and UK chip designer Arm to shun London in favour

Volkswagen is putting on hold a planned battery plant in eastern Europe and prioritising a similar facility in North America after estimating it could receive €10bn in US incentives. The decision is the latest fallout from Joe Biden’s $369bn package of subsidies and tax incentives for green technology that is luring European companies to the

The UN’s acknowledged “failure” in northern Syria after last month’s devastating earthquake has highlighted its tangled relations with the Damascus regime, which has included hiring a daughter of Syria’s sanctioned spy chief to work in the office of an aid agency. The slow arrival of international help to impoverished opposition areas of Syria after the

Private credit groups including Apollo, Ares and Blackstone are poised to write the largest direct loan on record as they continue to muscle in on a lucrative business traditionally dominated by Wall Street banks. The lenders are increasingly confident they can edge out investment banks including JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs on a deal to fund

One of Credit Suisse’s longest-standing shareholders has sold its entire stake in the scandal-hit Swiss bank after losing patience with its strategy amid persistent losses and a client exodus. US investment manager Harris Associates, whose deputy chair and chief investment officer David Herro was for years among the Swiss bank’s most prominent supporters, owned as

China has set a growth target of “around 5 per cent” for 2023 as Beijing seeks to revive investor confidence after the damage wrought by President Xi Jinping’s draconian zero-Covid regime last year. The figure, which was in line with analyst forecasts, was announced by Premier Li Keqiang at the Sunday opening of China’s rubber-stamp

The Financial Conduct Authority has been blamed by some UK officials and SoftBank staff for London losing out to New York on the blockbuster stock market listing of chip designer Arm. SoftBank, the Japanese owner of the Cambridge-based semiconductor company, this week dashed Rishi Sunak’s hopes of retaining the homegrown tech giant, rejecting entreaties from