The announcements that Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and Lloyds Banking Group are to sell off hundreds of branches has added a smile to the face of.

Alistair Darling as well as the European Commission, who had insisted that the banks sell off some of their branches. In a recent statement, the chancellor confirmed his opinion that the sales, were in the "best interest" of the wider UK banking sector.

Lloyds will dispose of more than 600 branches over the next four years, while RBS will sell 318 of their high street outlets. The Spanish banking group, Santander will be allowed to bid for Royal Bank of Scotland’s branches when they are put up for sale. Under competition rules agreed between London and Brussels, Santander will be eligible to bid for some of the branches as the currently hold less than 8 per cent of the UK small business lending market. Meanwhile, Sir Richard Branson is reported to be interested in moving into the world of high street banking as his Virgin Money group has applied to the Financial Services Authority (FSA) for a banking licence.

There are even some contentious rumors around that no less a company than PayPal might find them on the UK high street. Reports have it that PayPal already have an EU banking license, granted to them in May 2007, so why not a place for the outsiders!

Britain’s fourth-biggest supermarket group, WM Morrison have sent a message to their major suppliers that they will be looking for increased support for their increased and more aggressive promotion campaigns, The campaigns are aimed to increase their market share in what has become an increasingly competitive market. Morrison’s move comes as the prices of basic food stuffs begin to drop.

Europe’s biggest low-cost airline Ryanair announced on Monday that it is considering slowing down its rapid expansion program, and instead break with tradition by distributing cash earmarked to buy new aircraft to their shareholders instead. The company raised the possibility of the strategic shift while announcing a 46 per cent rise in second-quarter profits. The company has kept its full-year profit forecast steady, although they expect that figures for the third and fourth quarters will be less than rosy.

Sterling continued to weaken against the dollar, whilst rising slightly against the Euro and holding its own against the rest of the major currencies.

• Pound/US dollar 1.6398
• Pound/Euro 1.1168
• Pound/Japanese Yen 148.3102
• Pound/Swiss Franc 1.6874

The FTSE spent time under the 5,000-point mark on Tuesday with banking stocks taking the biggest toll. At close of trading, the FTSE 100 was seen to be holding its own on 5,037.2.

The FTSE 250 continues to suffer from a consistent run of heavy losses, falling more than 15% of its peal of 10,000 just a few weeks ago. At close of trading yesterday it was sitting on 8,756.68.

Troubled US commercial lender CIT Group, filed for bankruptcy on Sunday after attempts at a restructuring or bail-out failed. In a statement, CIT, who have been a key figure on the American banking scene for more than a century, announced that they had requested that the court quickly confirm its prepackaged bankruptcy plan. The plan, which has broad support from its debt holders, and in particular from Carl Icahn its billionaire investor. Icahn has agreed to provide a $1 billion line of credit, allowing the company to remain confident that they would be able to emerge from bankruptcy by the end of the year.

The US Dow Jones index made some recoveries from the last two days trading; up 61 points to 9,774.1 The NASDAQ were also fairly stable, reaching 2047.46.

The market was taken by surprise by the announcement of a swing to profitability by the auto manufacturing giant Ford. The company posted its first quarterly profit in more than a year, thanks to the implementation of cost-cutting and the government’s “cash-for-clunkers” rebates helped produce earnings of nearly $billion, or 29 cents a share, during the third quarter. Shares in Ford closed up 8.3 per cent at $7.58.

Australia’s economy continues to be the rising star of the global economies, so much so that it central bank has increased its interest rate for the second consecutive month, up a quarter percent to 3.5%. The Australian economy is the only one in the developed world to expand in the first half of 2009, with the continent largely managing to steer clear of recession, only entering into negative growth for the last quarter of 2008. The bank’s confidence was justifiably increased by the release last week of the lowest inflation figures in Australia for 10 years.

The price of gold price hit a fresh record high on Tuesday as India agreed to buy 200 tonnes of bullion from the International Monetary Fund. The move caused traders to speculate that there would be further purchases by the emerging economies. India’s purchase valued at around $6.7 billion, accounts for half of the IMF’s expected disposal of gold and signals a growing appetite among developing countries’ central banks for bullion in the wake of the global economic and financial crisis, coming after China had revealed earlier in the year that it had quietly almost doubled its gold reserves to become the world’s fifth-biggest holder.

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Tags: Alistair Darling, Bank, Banking, British Economy, British Pound, Bullion, Carl Icahn, cash for clunkers, CIT Group, Credit Crunch, Currency, Dow Jones, Economics, Economy, EU banking license, European Commission, Financial News, Financial Services Authority, Ford, FSA, FTSE, Gold, Government, Interest Rates, International Monetary Fund, Lloyds, Lloyds Banking Group, Money, Money Markets, NASDAQ, Paypal, RBS, Recession, Retail, Royal Bank of Scotland, Ryanair, Santander, Savings, Sir Richard Branson, Stock Markets, Stocks and shares, UK banking sector, UK Banks, UK Economy, UK government, UK Recession, Virgin, Virgin Money group, WM Morrison

If you are in business, you must have business bank accounts to manage money coming in from customers and money paid out to staff and suppliers.

Many businesses also have a deposit account to earn interest on money set aside for VAT or tax.
For small businesses, like sole traders or partnerships, business bank accounts are vital to separate business cash from your personal money.

This is especially important if the taxman investigates your business finances, otherwise he can ask questions about money you might have received personally, like birthday or Christmas gifts, if he thinks they are really business income.

Business accounts are much like personal current and savings accounts. The main difference is many personal accounts are free, but businesses pay charges on transactions, like writing a cheque.
High street banks are the traditional first port of call for a business account as most building societies only deal with personal customers, but some are now opening their doors to business people.

Business current accounts
Besides the normal services expected with any current account, like cheques books, cash cards and overdrafts.

Business accounts also have some added extras like:

· A night safe for depositing business takings when the bank is shut
· Extra debit cards for employees to help track spending on petrol and consumables
· Short-term borrowing to aid cash flow, like invoice factoring
· Commercial loans and asset finance for investing in business property or machinery and vehicles

Deposit accounts
Deposit accounts are the business version of savings accounts. Many businesses keep a reserve for paying VAT and tax bills earning interest in a deposit account.
Interest is paid gross on business deposit accounts – that’s without tax deducted – so make sure this is dealt with correctly in business accounts, as tax must be paid on any interest received.

Foreign currency accounts
Business bank accounts are available in different currencies, like Euros and US dollars, to help businesses that trade overseas with currency fluctuations.
Again these accounts are current or deposit accounts.

The trick is to keep the funds in a foreign currency account until the exchange rate favours UK Sterling and then transfer the money to your main business current or deposit account.

PayPal
PayPal is worth considering running alongside a business bank account for many small traders operating on the internet.

For instance, eBay traders or freelances can receive payments in any currency for modest fees via PayPal and then transfer the money in UK Sterling to a personal or business account.
Larger businesses will find PayPal too restrictive for their needs.

Online banking
Most banks provide extensive online services for businesses to send and receive money over the internet, download statements and for tracking income and expenditure without having to wait for paper statements.
This data is available for download to import directly in to accounting software like Sage and QuickBooks

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Tags: Banking, Business, Business Bank Accounts, Deposit accounts, Foreign currency accounts, Online banking, Paypal, UK Bank Accounts