As unsettled weather and rising food prices put off shoppers, retail sales volumes including fuel sank 1.3pc month-on-month, confounding economists' forecasts for flat sales.

The Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) said this morning that it had completed its review of Lloyds and RBS and that the bank could both generate enough capital through retained profits and restructuring their operations to meet the regulator's minimum ...

In his penultimate meeting as Bank of England Governor, Sir Mervyn, who retires at the end of June, was outvoted for a fourth consecutive month in calling for a �25bn increase in quantitative easing.

Lost tax revenue from money salted away offshore is costing governments more than $150bn (�99bn) a year, Oxfam has found - enough to eliminate extreme poverty across the globe twice over.

Britain's biggest building society posted a 3.4pc rise in pre-tax profits to �210m for the year to April 2013, from �203m last year.