Santander

Britain and France are at odds with other European Union countries over plans to insure against future bank failures, in another sign of the problems in trying to forge a common response to the bloc's economic woes.

Spanish banking giant Santander was suspicious of Bernard Madoff's activities as far back as 2006, internal documents show.

Virgin Money has been dropped from the race to buy up 318 RBS branches, sources familiar with the matter said at the weekend.

Santander UK profits grew more than 15% in the first three months of the year to £426m, with revenue up 8%.

Ricky Okey, managing director of Abbey for Intermediaries (AfI), is to leave Santander.

The acquisition of James Hay by IFG has been approved by regulators, with the deal set to complete fully by 15 March.

Santander has cut the rates on its 80% LTV mortgages by 0.74%.

A third - or almost 30,000 - of all consumer complaints referred to the financial ombudsman (FOS) in the second half of last year were against just three high street banks.

Major insurers are spending ­millions of pounds of cash reserves to win a larger share of the corporate pensions market, despite evidence that much of the business will prove to be loss-making, according to a leading insurance-market expert.

The office of the New York attorney general, Andrew Cuomo, has charged Bank of America, its former chief executive Kenneth Lewis and ex-chief financial officer Joe Price with fraud for allegedly misleading shareholders over its acquisition of Merrill...