Chancellor George Osborne has ordered the Treasury to draw up plans for a mass give-away of Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) shares to taxpayers by the next election in 2015, according to reports.

A group of MPs has criticised government attempts to stimulate the economy, including quantitative easing, for being "expensive experiments".

Lord Myners, the former City Minister, has condemned lobbying of the government by the financial services industry, which has made fund managers rich at the expense of companies.

Stephen Hester, chief executive of Royal Bank of Scotland(RBS), mounted a strong defence of his bonus package to MPs yesterday, despite mounting criticism of the bank's involvement in the LIBOR scandal under his watch.

Economic output per person in the UK will not recover to its pre-crisis peak until 2018, according to the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR).

The FTSE 100 rose 6.43%, or almost 380 points, in January, making this the strongest start to the year since 1989.

BlackRock has entered a definitive agreement to acquire the exchange-traded funds (ETF) business of Credit Suisse, in a deal set to complete by the end of the second quarter.

The IMA expects to announce the results of its Absolute Return sector review by the end of February.

A convincing election win by Shinzo Abe and his Liberal Democratic Party(LDP) boosted Japanese equities and caused the yen to weaken.

Senior MPs want to call former Financial Services Authority (FSA) chief executive Hector Sants before the banking standards commission to explain how he will overhaul Barclays' troubled culture.