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

The average UK citizen has been ravaged by the current financial situation and spend a lot of the time trying just to make ends meet till things get back to normal. There must have been moments of despair when all of us have said to ourselves, if only I was as rich as Sir Richard Branson, Roman Abramovich or the ultimate multi billionaire, Bill Gates.

However, those out there who are eating themselves up for those mega-rich people take a moment and spare a thought for them too. For they too have seen their considerable fortunes shrink considerably in the last twelve months. And when their fortunes shrink, we are talking about billions.

A recent report on the failing fortunes of the top ten of the UK. Wealthy reports that their fortunes have dwindled on average by 25% in 2008.

Among the biggest losers on the list of the biggest losers are entrepreneurs Sir Richard Branson and Sir Philip Green whose net worth has taken a very major tumble. However this would appear to be small change when you consider the rise and fall of Roman Abramovich, the London based Russian born oligarch. Reliable information has it that twelve months ago Abramovich enjoyed a net worth of $23.5 billion, making him the second richest person residing in the UK at that time, and the fifteenth richest person in the world. Only a year later his fortune is estimated to have crashed to around $15billion dollars, a loss of more close to 40% of its value. It’s no wonder that one of Abramovich’s favourite playthings, Chelsea FC is looking a little frayed around the edges these days.

Yet the UK citizen might take some little comfort in the fact that these reversals in fortunes are not being confined to the UK. Figures now show that even the number of people who fell into the category of billionaires have fallen from over eleven hundred in 2008 to less than eight hundred in March 2009.

Among the mega billionaires, Bill Gates and Warren Buffet both succeeded in losing enough money to finance a small country. In any event they were planning to devote their time and most of their massive personal fortunes to charity, little suspecting that they might become one themselves. While the chances seem remote, if they continue to lose money at the rate they did last year, it could happen, although it might take a while.

On the global list of fallen billionaires, Anil Ambani from India took the hardest thump. This time last year he was estimated to be the sixth wealthiest man on the planet with a net worth of close to $32billion. Today his fortune has sunk to a paltry $10 billion and even worse he has to face the ignominy of being 34th on the list of the World’s wealthiest people.

So take a moment to consider our position and w take comfort in the fact that the downturn has affected us all.

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Tags: Bill Gates, Economy, Finance, Financial News, Money, Roman Abramovich, Savings, Sir Philip Green, Sir Richard Branson