Ben Bernanke said the US Federal Reserve could start slowing the pace of its asset purchases �in the next few meetings�, but only if the labour market showed sustained improvement.

For the last seven months, a battle has raged over how much capital Britain's largest banks need to hold. The first shot was fired in November by the Bank of England's Financial Policy Committee (FPC), which asked Britain's then banking regulator, the ...

Nationwide has increased its share of the British mortgage market to a record level, helped by government-funded programmes to support housebuyers, such as the Bank of England's Funding for Lending Scheme.

David Cameron has called a Europe-wide agreement on tackling tax avoidance as a "turning point", after Google's boss urged politicians to "sort" the system.

European leaders have thrown their weight behind a gathering international crackdown on tax evasion, backing US-led efforts to develop a new global template to combat banking secrecy.