News

Britain is poised to relax one of the biggest restrictions on the banking sector as part of “Big Bang 2.0”, the long promised liberalisation of post-Brexit financial services rules. The “ringfencing” of banks with retail and investment arms was introduced after the 2008 financial crash with the aim of reducing risk and preventing banking collapses.

The US is pushing its European allies to take a harder stance towards Beijing as it tries to leverage its stance on Ukraine to gain more support from Nato countries for its efforts to counter China in the Indo-Pacific. According to people briefed on conversations between the US and its Nato allies, Washington has in

Xi Jinping faces one of his greatest challenges as president of China after tens of thousands of people took to the streets over Beijing’s strict coronavirus controls and suppression of freedom of speech. At least 10 cities, including Shanghai, Beijing, Wuhan and Chengdu, were shaken by rare political protests over the weekend, triggering clashes with

China has been rocked by some of its most significant acts of civil disobedience in years after vigils in Shanghai and other big cities to mark a deadly fire in Xinjiang region turned into protests over Xi Jinping’s draconian zero-Covid policies. Social media posts have blamed the deaths of 10 people in the blaze on

Qatar has launched a review of its investments in London after the city’s transport authority this week banned the Gulf state’s advertisements on the UK capital’s buses, taxis and underground train system. The move by Transport for London was prompted by concerns about Qatar’s stance on LGBT+ rights and its treatment of migrant workers. It

Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia’s new strategy to destroy Ukraine’s infrastructure and plunge it into darkness would not weaken the country’s resolve to liberate all occupied land, describing the conflict as a “war of strength and resilience”. Pushing back against western fears of escalation, Ukraine’s president insisted there would be no lasting resolution to the war

Rishi Sunak is under pressure from a broad alliance of British business, legal, worker and environmental groups to drop controversial plans to automatically strip swaths of EU-derived law from the British statute book by the end of next year. More than a dozen organisations including the Institute of Directors, Trades Union Congress and Chartered Institute

Credit Suisse has forecast a pre-tax loss of up to SFr1.5bn ($1.6bn) in the fourth quarter, with the beleaguered Swiss bank reporting that wealthy clients had withdrawn up to 10 per cent of assets since the start of October. The lender said that the scale of the client outflows — which followed a string of

Senior Walt Disney executives led a rebellion against chief executive Bob Chapek in recent weeks, which resulted in his ousting and replacement with predecessor Bob Iger, according to people familiar with the matter. The covert campaign to overthrow Chapek, which began in the summer, came after the outgoing chief executive lost the confidence of some

Bob Iger, who served as Disney chief executive for 15 years, has replaced successor Bob Chapek after a rocky tenure that lasted just 33 months. Iger, who handpicked Chapek as his successor only to see the relationship quickly sour, will serve another two years in the job that made him one of the world’s most

The UN climate summit has agreed to establish a historic loss and damage fund for poorer countries after working beyond sunrise in Egypt on Sunday, but backed down on greater cuts to greenhouse gas emissions and an end to fossil fuel use. A breakthrough was achieved with a fund to cover the “loss and damage”

UK chancellor Jeremy Hunt confronted a backlash from Tory MPs angry at a new era of high taxation even as the IMF hailed his efforts to restore the country’s fiscal credibility. On a day that two leading think-tanks said that high taxes had arrived for good and that wages were set for their most prolonged

British households are set for the steepest fall in living standards on record and the highest tax burden since the second world war after Jeremy Hunt laid out plans to cut public spending and raise revenue to fill a £55bn fiscal hole. The chancellor told a sombre House of Commons that a massive fiscal consolidation,

Jeremy Hunt, chancellor, will on Thursday seek to restore Britain’s tarnished economic reputation with a massive package of tax rises and spending cuts intended to repair the public finances and tame inflation. “We will face into the storm,” he will say. Hunt’s Autumn Statement will intensify the financial hardship facing millions of Britons and begin

Donald Trump has launched a third bid for the White House, firing the starting gun on the 2024 presidential election cycle just one week after midterm elections in which many of the Republicans he endorsed underperformed expectations in races up and down the ballot. “In order to make America great and glorious again I am

World leaders will state that today’s era “must not be of war” and will condemn threats to use nuclear weapons at the G20 summit in Bali, reflecting rising global anxiety around Russia’s war against Ukraine. A draft communiqué agreed by diplomats, seen by the Financial Times and confirmed by two delegations, said: “Most members strongly

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt is planning a big package of spending cuts and tax increases in Thursday’s Autumn Statement after being warned that UK public borrowing will be about £70bn larger than expected. The Office for Budget Responsibility estimates that a worse economic outlook will raise government borrowing close to £100bn in 2026-27, according to an

Sam Bankman-Fried’s main international FTX exchange held just $900mn in easily sellable assets against $9bn of liabilities the day before it collapsed into bankruptcy, according to investment materials seen by the Financial Times. The largest portion of those liquid assets listed on a FTX international balance sheet dated Thursday was $470mn of Robinhood shares owned

FTX, the once high-flying cryptocurrency group, has filed for bankruptcy protection in the US, marking a stunning collapse of the $32bn empire built by the colourful 30-year-old entrepreneur Sam Bankman-Fried. The filing in Delaware federal court on Friday included the main FTX international exchange, a US crypto marketplace, Bankman-Fried’s proprietary trading group Alameda Research and

The Bahamas securities regulator has frozen the assets of part of Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto empire and moved to appoint a liquidator for one of his entities, as the embattled entrepreneur raced to raise as much as $8bn to save FTX. The Bahamas Securities Commission took the action on Thursday against FTX Digital Markets, the Bahamian

Binance will abandon its deal to rescue Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX cryptocurrency exchange, citing concerns about its business practices and investigations by US financial regulators. The move comes a day after Binance, one of the world’s largest crypto trading venues, tentatively agreed to buy FTX after it suffered a liquidity crunch. “As a result of corporate