A financial adviser for Lloyds TSB who took almost £140,000 from his children's school and from his clients has been jailed for 18 months.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy have hammered out a common position on the euro debt crisis.

The IMA is to monitor the holdings of funds in the Money Market sector for the first time, in line with new FSA and European requirements.

Sesame Bankhall Group today backed MPs' call for a 12-month delay to the implementation of RDR, saying the move could mean an additional 500,000 clients continue to benefit from advice from its IFAs.

Bank shares began to regain lost ground in early trading today after Friday's stress test results sparked sharp falls among some of the UK's biggest banks.

Delaying the introduction of the retail distribution review (RDR) by one year, as proposed by MPs last week, could result in an extra 10% of advisers remaining in the industry, IFA network Openwork said.

Investment management boutique J O Hambro Capital Management is to be acquired by Australian fund manager BT Investment Management (BTIM) in a £209m deal.

A proposals to delay the RDR by 12 months to give financial advisers more time to meet its rules appeared, initially, to receive a mixed response.

Prudential will team up with The Children's ISA to launch one of the UK's first Junior ISA (JISA) schemes, which replace the scrapped Child Trust Funds.

Man Group is to acquire the remaining exposure to the estates of bankrupt US investment giant Lehman Brothers from funds managed by its subsidiary, GLG Partners, for $355m (£220.4m) in cash.