News

Bank governor Mervyn King plotted a secret bailout of the world banking system using funds from four cash-rich nations, including the UK, in March 2008, according to a US embassy cable released by WikiLeaks.

FSA chief executive Hector Sants was forced to defend the regulator's record on Iran after senior US officials urged it to take action against London-based Iranian banks suspected of financing nuclear programmes, cables released by WikiLeaks show.

Witan, the £1.56bn multi-manager investment trust, has added its first dedicated emerging markets portfolio.

The Irish government has banned Allied Irish Banks from handing out €40m to staff in bonuses, saying it would turn off state aid if the pay-outs went ahead.

The housing market is being stifled by a lack of first-time buyers and economic confidence, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) says.

An investigation into how well the private healthcare market is working is being planned by the Office of Fair Trading (OFT).

Private hospitals are becoming more dependent on providing NHS services as private medical insurance (PMI) activity continues to fall, according to the latest industry survey from Laing and Buisson.

Tax reliefs on VCTs and Enterprise Investment Schemes (EISs) as well as some pension contributions and life insurance policies will be reviewed, and potentially scrapped, by the Office for Tax Simplification (OTS).

Pensioners using income drawdown who are transferring to a new pension scheme must be aware of fresh government rules regarding new review periods, Skandia warns.

Rabobank International is seeking to move into commodity ETFs in the next six months, by acting as swap provider and distributor for certain ETF Exchange (ETFX) products.