UK's George Osborne says actively considering RBS 'bad bank': Report

LONDON: British finance minister George Osborne said his ministry was actively looking at breaking up the state-backed Royal Bank of Scotland to create a "bad bank" to house its problem loans, the Daily Telegraph newspaper reported on Friday.

Bank of England offers ray of hope for UK economy

LONDON: Britain's central bank lifted a bit of the gloom hanging over the economy on Wednesday, issuing a slightly improved outlook for inflation and growth for the first time since the financial crisis.

G7 nations agree to target tax evasion and avoidance

LONDON: The Group of Seven industrialised nations today agreed that collective action was needed to target tax evasion and avoidance, including by multinational companies using transfer pricing rules to shift profits into tax havens.

Britain is a 'crisis economy', says Mark Carney

Speaking on the fringes of the International Monetary Fund’s spring meetings in Washington, he said: “The US is breaking out of the pack of crisis economies that include the eurozone, the UK and Japan.”

Bank of England split 6-3 over more bond purchases

LONDON: The Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee was split 6-3 on more bond purchases earlier this month, unexpectedly reviving the prospect that the central bank might restart its quantitative easing programme.

Bank of England fears that financial system needs more capital

Bank of England policymakers have ordered UK banks to make a more "honest" assessment of hidden losses on their balance sheets and warned they will be forced to find ways to fill a shortfall that could be up to £60bn.

Bank of England gets long to-do list for overhaul

LONDON (Reuters) - The Bank of England needs to overhaul its internal structures to address a patchy forecasting record and open up to a broader range of views on the economy, three independent reviews of the central bank's operations recommended on Friday.

Mervyn King gives green light for George Osborne to miss UK debt target

Sir Mervyn King has cleared the way for the Chancellor to ditch one of his cast-iron fiscal rules and miss his target to get the national debt under control by 2016.