The Bank of England has made a £5.5bn full-year loss on the assets bought under its quantitative easing (QE) programme to prop up the battered UK economy.

Barclays, RBS and Lloyds shares have all rocketed today on news the Basel Committee plans to water down its capital and liquidity reform package.

Standard Life's Stakeholder with-profits pension plans were hit by market volatility and lost 1.2% during the first half of the year.

Embattled oil giant BP has sentenced CEO Tony Hayward to Siberia for his part in the mis-handling of the Gulf of Mexico spill.

Business secretary Vince Cable said banks should be 'very, very self-conscious' about how they reward staff and investors and refused to rule out a tax on bank profits.

The Treasury is proposing setting up separate compensation schemes and ending the current cross-subsidy between different classes of FSCS levy payers.

Lifemark, one of the life settlements groups behind Keydata, could be facing liquidation after US hedge fund CarVal pulled a $60m rescue offer.

A base rate of 0.5% will begin to look like the 'new normal' with hikes unlikely until 2014, according to a leading economic forecaster.

BP chief executive Tony Hayward is expected to stand down today but he could receive a pay-off of £1m with his pension pot potentially as big as £10.8m.

George Bogucki, managing director of Butterfield Private Bank (UK), has left the firm after three and a half years.