Northern Rock

The Treasury and Financial Services Authority(FSA) are heading for a clash over a proposal to allow bidders for Northern Rock's "good" bank to take about £500m out of the lender.

Taxpayer-owned banks are set to warn their mortgage customers that they must put their mortgage repayments first, rather than renewing their digital TV subscription or buying a new phone.

Nationalised lender Northern Rock has seen losses narrow in the first six months of the year ahead of an expected return to profit in 2012.

A buy-to-let mortgage lender that narrowly escaped disaster during the credit crunch has emerged as a surprise contender to buy Northern Rock.

Northern Rock is to be sold rather than remutualised or floated on the stock market, the Chancellor said last night.

The government is set to force banks to ring-fence their retail operations from investment banking.

Coventry Building Society is examining a range of capital instruments through which it could raise hundreds of millions of pounds to fund a takeover bid for Northern Rock, according to reports.

A shift in focus by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) toward the biggest City banks in the wake of the financial crisis has led to a dramatic reduction in the number of risk assessments conducted into financial firms.

Coventry Building Society has flagged its willingness to buy the so-called "good-bank" Northern Rock and remutualise the state-owned lender after its bail out and nationalisation in February 2008.

Nationalised lender Northern Rock plc has revealed it is to cut up to 680 jobs by the end of 2011 in an attempt to rein in its costs in "very challenging" trading conditions.