Bank of England

First-time buyers need an average deposit of £29,000 to buy a property, a report by the Halifax concludes.

An MPC member has predicted interest rates could hit 5% and urged IFAs to help homeowners prepare for the increases.

China has offered support to the eurozone to help it through the debt crisis that has gripped the region.

In 2011 the danger is the Euro system will put too much pressure on too many weaker countries and economies.

The Monetary Policy Committee's (MPC) Adam Posen has warned the Bank it should not try to compensate for its past mistakes in underestimating inflation by pushing up interest rates.

Britain's financial system is vulnerable to increased EU sovereign debt woes and bubbles in emerging market assets and junk bonds, the Bank of England (BoE) says.

Deputy governor of the Bank of England Charles Bean says another eurozone sovereign debt crisis could "derail" Britain's recovery, hitting businesses and households hard.

The Bank of England has held interest rates at 0.5% and left unchanged its quantitative easing programme at £200bn.

The Irish Republic is poised to unveil the details of a severe austerity budget later, part of a deal to secure an €85bn bail-out from the European Union and International Monetary Fund.

Former Bank of England policymaker David Blanchflower has called for Mervyn King to quit over the US WikiLeaks affair.