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The Federal Reserve raised its benchmark interest rate by a quarter of a percentage point on Wednesday to the highest level in 22 years, as it wrestles with how much more to squeeze the US economy to bring inflation under control. The Federal Open Market Committee lifted the federal funds rate to a new target

NatWest chief executive Alison Rose has agreed to step down after she admitted to inaccurately briefing a BBC journalist about the closure of Nigel Farage’s bank account. Rose will leave with immediate effect, the bank said in a statement. Paul Thwaite, chief executive of the bank’s commercial and institutional business, will take over for 12

Credit Suisse has been fined $388mn by US and British regulators for “significant failures in risk management and governance” related to the collapse of Archegos Capital, which caused a $5.5bn trading loss and helped bring about the demise of the Swiss lender. The US Federal Reserve imposed a $269mn penalty on the bank for “unsafe

Powerful Republican donors and billionaires Ken Griffin and Nelson Peltz are rethinking plans to support the US presidential bid of Ron DeSantis over concerns that the Florida governor has veered too far to the right. They have been discouraged by DeSantis’s interventionist policies, people familiar with their thinking told the Financial Times. Griffin objects to

The message of Thursday’s three UK by-elections was muddied somewhat by the Conservatives’ success in clinging on to the seat Boris Johnson vacated in outer London. But it was clear enough: this was a disastrous night for the Tories. Striking swings to Labour and the Liberal Democrats in northern and south-west England respectively confirm that

Greg Hands, Conservative party chair, on Friday morning surveyed a scene of by-election devastation in two rock-solid Tory seats in Yorkshire in the north and Somerset in the south of England and admitted: “We need to do better.” The Tory defeats in Selby and Ainsty, and Somerton and Frome were on a massive scale, the

Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives have narrowly held on to the Uxbridge and South Ruislip seat in an unexpected UK parliamentary by-election result but were poised to lose two other seats in a night of political drama. Sunak’s ruling party retained the London seat vacated by former premier Boris Johnson by fewer than 500 votes, but the

The biggest US banks spent more than $1bn on severance costs during the first six months of 2023, underscoring the steep price of unwinding Wall Street’s overexpansion during the coronavirus pandemic. Goldman Sachs, which has been hit particularly hard by the slowdown in trading and investment banking, on Wednesday became the latest big bank to

Vladimir Putin ordered the seizure of Danone and Carlsberg’s Russian operations after businessmen close to the Kremlin expressed an interest in the assets, according to people close to the decision. On Tuesday the government appointed Yakub Zakriev, Chechnya’s agriculture minister, as head of the Danone business and installed Teimuraz Bolloev, a longtime friend of Putin,

The UK’s financial regulator and information watchdog will warn banks that they cannot hide behind data protection rules if they fail to alert savers to better deals. Under pressure to pass on the benefits of higher rates, banks told the Financial Conduct Authority at a meeting earlier this month that they could not tell certain

China’s economy lost momentum in the second quarter, with gross domestic product expanding 0.8 per cent against the previous three months as falling exports, weak retail sales and a moribund property sector weighed on growth. The difficulties facing the world’s second-largest economy will put further pressure on global growth and add to calls for Beijing

The Pentagon’s annual funding bill is set to become the focus of a political showdown after Republicans inserted “anti-woke” social provisions into the legislation. The bill — known as the National Defense Authorization Act — is normally shielded from the most bitter partisan bickering and often passes with support from both political parties. But on

Three of the largest US banks reported a surge in profits from charging more for loans, as the Federal Reserve’s series of interest rate rises fattened their bottom lines. JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and Wells Fargo collectively earned $49bn in net interest income in the second quarter, the difference between what the banks pay for deposits

Rishi Sunak on Thursday accepted in full the recommendations of independent pay review bodies to give key public sector workers wage rises of about 6.5 per cent, telling trade unions to call off strikes now. The prime minister agreed the awards for 2023-24 after talks with chancellor Jeremy Hunt, when he was reassured they could

Rishi Sunak is expected on Thursday to back pay rises of about 6 per cent for public sector workers in 2023-24, but only after ministers were ordered to find significant savings from their Whitehall budgets. The prime minister said any pay rises for this year had to be responsible and could not be funded by

Jeremy Hunt has ordered ministers to find over £2bn of savings to fund 6 per cent public sector pay rises this year, as he prepares to hold crunch talks with Rishi Sunak on the matter. The chancellor has warned that he will not borrow more money to fund pay rises for police officers, teachers, nurses

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has tied Ankara’s approval of Sweden’s Nato bid to his country’s efforts to enter the EU, in a fresh blow to Stockholm’s attempt to join the military alliance. “I call out to those who have kept Turkey waiting at the EU door for more than 50 years, pave the way

The US and Germany are under intense pressure from other allies to show greater support for Ukraine’s eventual membership of Nato, just days before the military alliance’s leaders meet in Lithuania. Washington and Berlin have backed a form of words for the summit’s concluding statement that does not fully endorse a “pathway” to Nato membership,