Economics / Markets

The European Union has launched a competition to find the latest dangerous financial product, in an attempt to unearth the next mis-selling scandal.

LV= has reduced charges on its self-invested personal pensions (SIPPs) worth between £350,000 and £1m from 35 to 20 basis points (bps), a decrease of more than 40%.

National wealth manager, Bellpenny, has acquired Monmouthshire Independent Financial Advisers (MIFA), a subsidiary of Monmouthshire Building Society.

Banks are likely to 'continue to hide' their charges leaving independent and restricted whole of market advisers at a disadvantage, said the director of Wingate Financial Planning.

A former sales trader at Legal & General's investment management arm and a broker are the latest defendants to face charges in the Financial Services Authority's (FSA) biggest insider-trading investigation.

Malcolm Streatfield, chief executive of the Lighthouse Group, has transferred 233,333 ordinary shares of 1p in the company into his self-invested personal pension (SIPP).

Britain's bailed-out banks need billions of pounds more capital to shore up their balance sheets and support the economy, senior Bank of England officials have warned.

The UK's main inflation rate has remained at 2.7% for the third month in a row, broadly in line with economists' expectations, despite steep rises in energy bills.

The scale of the fine due to be levied on the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) for its attempts to manipulate the Libor interest rate could be as high as £500m, according to reports.

Investment companies should look to reduce the number of active funds they offer, according to AWD Chase De Vere following in-house research showing underperfomance in all but one key sector.