Economics / Markets

George Osborne met about 70 staff from the FSA yesterday to discuss Conservative plans for a new regulatory structure for the City.

The FTSE 100 opened 0.5% down as banks fell on news Qatar's sovereign wealth fund had sold stock in Barclays.

European shares rose in early trading this morning, with banks adding most points to the FTSE Eurofirst 300 (up 1.0% at the time of writing); HSBC, Banco Santander and BNP Paribas gained between 1.2 and 2.3%.

Liverpool Victoria and Royal Liver, the two biggest friendly societies, are in merger talks that could lead to a £10billion mutual giant with more than 5million customers.

European markets opened in positive territory this morning with the FTSE Eurofirst 300 and the FTSE All-Share both up 0.8%. This follows strong overnight results from IBM and Google.

Investment Bank Goldman Sachs set aside $5.35bn in its third-quarter results to take its compensation pool for the first nine months of the year to $16.7bn.

European markets have broadly continued gaining on Wednesday's highs, following encouraging US earnings and the resulting strength in US markets.

The Government will not underwrite Lloyds Banking Group's planned rights issue, potentially compounding the challenge for the partly state-owned bank to raise enough capital to wriggle free of the toxic asset insurance programme.

The FTSE 100 hit a fresh year high this afternoon as global markets surged forwards.

Legal & General Investment Management economist James Carrick examines the dangers of consumers prioritising saving over spending.