The Financial Services Authority has banned Royal Bank of Scotland from making repayments on bonds worth £920 million pounds next month. They are doing so as a result of concerns that the partly nationalised bank is too reliant on billions of pounds of taxpayer’s money to remain afloat. RBS is in advanced talks with the European Commission (EC) to decide the nature of fiscal restraints to be imposed on the bank in return for its government funding. Among other measures, the EC is likely to force the bank to cut its share in the small-business banking market.

The British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) has predicted that the UK economy should bounce back next year. They did hasten to add that the risk of the economy relapsing still remains high. The BCC announced in a recent statement that they expect the economy to grow 1.1% in 2010, almost double their previous forecast of 0.6% made as recently as June. According the report, unemployment will peak at around 3 million, fewer than the 3.2 million forecast previously.

At a weekend meeting of the G20 in London, finance ministers representing the world’s most powerful economies have reached agreement on a series of measures designed to regulate the global banking system.

The ministers are interested in implementing a system that will reward long-term performance rather than short-term risk-taking among the global banking community, without reaching agreement on specific limits on the amounts individual bankers get paid.

Britain, the US and Canada were reported to be against the proposal, which is due for further discussion at the summit of G20 leaders in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania later this month.

The UK economy should bounce back next year but the risk of a relapse remains high, a business group has warned.

The British Chambers of Commerce expects the economy to grow 1.1% in 2010, almost double its previous forecast of 0.6% made in June.

It says unemployment will peak at just above 3 million, fewer than the 3.2 million forecast previously.

However, it said that sustaining the recovery would prove challenging given the UK’s debt burden.

Vodafone and O2 have both tabled bids of about £3.5 billion to buy T-Mobile UK from owner Deutsche Telecom, with a successful bid from either firm liable to make them the largest mobile phone operator in the UK.

High street retail chain, Wilkinsons have succeeded in filling a large part of the vacuum left when Woolworths closed their doors towards the end of 2008. The company reported annual sales up by 6.2 percent to 1.4 billion pounds in the year to the end of January, a record for the family-owned group. Wilkinsons have announced their plans for expansion, in which they will open 15 new outlets by 2009, as they drive to reach a target of at least 500 outlets by 2012.

The U.K.’s largest recruitment company Hays Plc retreated 3.7 percent to 96.1 pence on the announcement that their full-year profit had declined by 44 percent due to reduced hiring in the recession.

The U.K. developer of software for William Hill Plc’s Web-gambling site Playtech Ltd announced a 38% increase on pre-tax profits. Their shares rose in value by 13.25 pence to 346 on the news.

Shares in Premier Farnell Plc the U.K. electronic and industrial products distributor dropped 7.2 percent to 151.3 pence after they reported earnings and turnover and profit that fell behind analysts’ estimates.

The FTSE 100 index ended a further 54.95 points higher at 4,851.70. The index has now risen by 38 percent from its six-year low in early March, on hopes that the worst of the global recession is behind us in the UK.

Meanwhile the FTSE 250 rose again on Friday, up 141.05 points to close on 8,745.85.

The pound rose against the dollar, yen and Swiss franc, yet continued to falter against the Euro.

• Pound/US dollar 1.6398
• Pound/Euro 1.1449
• Pound/Japanese Yen 152.6881
• Pound/Swiss Franc 1.7361

The number of US workers claiming unemployment benefits has fallen last week but continued to be a cause for concern, with fears that unemployment figures will remain high even after the US moves out of recession.

New jobless claims fell by 4,000 to 570,000; however the number of workers continuing to claim unemployment benefits rose by 92,000 to 6.23 million.

Wall Street on Friday saw the markets continuing to rise, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average up 99.66 points to close on 9441.27 while the NASDAQ Composite index hurdled the 2,000 mark yet again, closing for the weekend on 2018.78.

The European Central Bank (ECB) remain cautious on the state of economy in the 16 nation Eurozone, forecasting that growth would be very gradual and is capable of being thrown into reverse again.

Evidence of the ECB’s continued wariness, was the news that they had left their main interest rate unchanged for the fourth consecutive month at 1 per cent, which is a record low.

• TransUnion Reveals National Credit Card Debt on the Rise TransUnion.com, one of the three major credit bureaus, released the...
• Where Do Small Businesses Go Now? Credit and money are still in really tight places, and...
• 401k Introduction The original 401(k) plan was created and set into motion...

Tags: Bank, Banking, British Chambers of Commerce, British Economy, British Pound, Credit Crunch, Currency, Dow Jones, Economy, Employment, European Central Bank, European Commission, Financial News, Financial Services Authority, FSA, FTSE, Global Credit Crisis, Money Markets, NASDAQ, O2, Playtech Ltd, Premier Farnell Plc, RBS, Recession, Royal Bank of Scotland, Stock Markets, Stocks and shares, T-Mobile, UK Banks, UK Economy, UK government, UK Recession, Unemployment, Vodafone, Wall Street, Wilkinsons, William Hill, Woolworths