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Some of the UK’s largest banks have agreed measures with the government to help struggling borrowers as they brace for a surge in late mortgage payments. The so-called forbearance measures, which were used during the 2008 financial crisis, are an attempt by banks including HSBC, Barclays, Lloyds Banking Group and NatWest to avoid repossessions and

China will remove quarantine requirements for inbound travellers from January 8 as the country dismantles the remnants of a zero-Covid regime that closed it off from the rest of the world for almost three years. The National Health Commission on Monday unveiled the move as part of a wider announcement that downgraded the country’s management

Hedge funds trading bonds and currencies are on track for their best year since the global financial crisis, boosted by the steep interest rate rises that have inflicted heavy losses on equity specialists and mainstream investors. So-called macro hedge funds, made famous by the likes of George Soros and Louis Bacon, endured a barren period

Chinese officials estimate about 250mn people, or 18 per cent of the population, were infected with Covid-19 in the first 20 days of December, as Beijing abruptly dismantled restrictions that had contained the disease for almost three years. The estimates — including 37mn people, or 2.6 per cent of the population, who were infected on

The UK faces a fresh wave of strike action in the new year, as nurses, ambulance staff and rail workers prepare to walk out over pay. The PCS union, which represents striking civil servants including Border Force staff, on Friday warned industrial action would be ramped up even further if the government continued to refuse

Britain has joined the international criticism of Joe Biden’s massive US package of green subsidies, warning they are protectionist and will hit UK-based makers of electric vehicles, batteries and other renewables. Kemi Badenoch, the UK’s international trade secretary, has written to her US counterpart, Katherine Tai, to protest at the structure of the Biden administration’s

Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy capped a whirlwind day in Washington with an impassioned plea to Congress and the American people to keep up support for Kyiv as it fights Russia’s invasion. In a speech on Wednesday, Zelenskyy thanked lawmakers and the US public for broad and bipartisan support and said sustained commitments would be critical.

Health chiefs have warned they cannot guarantee patient safety when ambulance workers launch strike action on Wednesday, as Rishi Sunak refused to reopen this year’s NHS pay deal. Health secretary Steve Barclay met ambulance unions on Tuesday to discuss cover for 999 calls during the strike in England and Wales, but the talks broke down

The congressional committee probing last year’s violent attack on the US Capitol has voted to recommend that the US Department of Justice pursue criminal charges against former president Donald Trump for his role in the failed insurrection. During its final public hearing on Monday, the bipartisan nine-member panel unanimously said Trump should be prosecuted for

Britain is bracing for one of the most disruptive weeks of strike action in recent history after the government signalled its determination to face down the unions despite calls for pay negotiations from health leaders and some Conservative MPs. Nurses, ambulance workers, customs and immigration staff, postal and rail workers will all walk out in

The EU’s trading partners have hit out at the bloc’s plan to introduce the world’s first carbon border tax, saying it is protectionist and puts export industries at risk, as negotiations to complete the deal stretch into the weekend. According to two people familiar with the discussions, several developing nations have already begun to negotiate

David Cameron, Britain’s former prime minister, is returning to public life with a new job teaching politics at a university in the Gulf state of Abu Dhabi. Cameron will lecture students on “practising politics and government in the age of disruption” for a three-week course in January at the New York University Abu Dhabi. It

The Bank of England raised interest rates on Thursday by half a percentage point to 3.5 per cent, the highest level in 14 years, and warned that further tightening of monetary policy was likely. In a vote showing a majority on the central bank’s Monetary Policy Committee for “forceful” action against high inflation, six of

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt is exploring plans to keep providing all British businesses with help for their energy bills once winter has passed, in what would be a break with current government policy to limit such aid to “vulnerable industries” after March. The potential change in the government’s support package for business, which several officials said

Sam Bankman-Fried has been accused of engineering “one of the biggest financial frauds in American history” as US prosecutors filed criminal charges against the founder of failed cryptocurrency exchange FTX. In an indictment unsealed on Tuesday, the US Department of Justice charged Bankman-Fried with eight counts including conspiracy to commit wire fraud on customers and

Sam Bankman-Fried, the former chief executive of bankrupt crypto exchange FTX has been arrested in the Bahamas. The Bahamian attorney-general Ryan Pinder said the country’s police force had arrested the disgraced crypto tycoon after receiving “formal notification” from the US that it had filed criminal charges. The US is “likely to request his extradition”, Pinder

The European parliament is at the centre of a spreading corruption scandal after Belgian police seized €600,000 in cash and detained two MEPs as part of an international investigation into claims that football World Cup host Qatar sought to buy influence. A Belgian judge charged four unnamed people on Sunday with “participation in a criminal

Blackstone has warned of the risk of delays to the launch of a new private equity fund designed for wealthy individuals, as it copes with heavy investor withdrawals at two other funds in real estate and credit aimed at a similar clientele. The New York-based investment manager has been preparing to open a fund called

Jeremy Hunt has warned trade unions not to jeopardise Britain’s recovery, saying that high pay demands will hit the fight against inflation and harm the workers they are trying to protect. In an interview with the Financial Times, the UK chancellor did not deny that ministers had blocked a potential 10 per cent pay offer

Jeremy Hunt will redraw the financial services rule book on Friday, including casting aside some safeguards designed to avoid a repeat of the 2008 crash, in an attempt to boost the City of London as a driver of growth. The chancellor will announce a package of more than 30 reforms in Edinburgh, arguing that many

The world’s largest sovereign wealth fund will become a more vocal shareholder and plans to vote against companies that fail to set a net zero target, overpay their top leaders, or do not have sufficiently diverse boards. Nicolai Tangen, chief executive of the $1.3tn Norwegian oil fund, told the Financial Times’ Global Boardroom event that

Donald Trump’s businesses have been found guilty of tax fraud, in a significant victory for Manhattan prosecutors who pursued the only criminal case against the former US president’s empire even as he launched a third bid for the White House. A New York jury on Tuesday convicted The Trump Organization — whose entities had been

The Treasury is finalising plans for a package of sweeping rules to regulate the cryptocurrency industry, including limits on foreign companies selling into the UK, provisions for how to deal with the collapse of companies and restrictions on the advertising of products. Ministers will shortly launch a consultation on the new regulatory regime, after the

The EU must “simplify and adapt” its rules on state aid to counteract the competitive effects of the US’s new $369bn climate package, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said on Sunday. Europe should “adjust our own rules to make it easier for public investments”, von der Leyen said in her first public response

Alameda Research was allowed to exceed normal borrowing limits on the FTX exchange since its early days, Sam Bankman-Fried has said, in a concession that illustrates how the former billionaire’s trading shop enjoyed preferential treatment over clients years before the 2022 crypto crisis. In an interview with the Financial Times, the 30-year-old described the outsized

EU member states have agreed to implement a $60 ceiling on global purchases of Russian oil after Poland dropped its objections to the long-debated deal aimed at denting the Kremlin’s fossil-fuel revenues. Warsaw had delayed agreement on the cap after demanding a lower ceiling to further erode Moscow’s income. Its backing means the bloc will

Blackstone has limited investor withdrawals at its $125bn real estate investment fund after a surge in redemption requests from investors pulling cash from private assets. The private equity group met only 43 per cent of redemption requests from investors in the Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust fund in the month of November, according to a

Inflation in the eurozone has fallen for the first time in 17 months, raising hopes that the biggest global price surge for a generation has peaked and easing pressure on central banks to continue increasing rates aggressively. A slowdown in energy and services prices helped inflation in the single currency bloc to fall more than

The head of British Gas-owner Centrica has warned that more UK retail energy suppliers will probably go bust this winter, with some who are “struggling for cash” already likely to be trading while technically insolvent. Chris O’Shea, head of Britain’s biggest energy supplier, said some of the larger UK energy providers were also at risk

BlockFi has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, making the crypto lender backed by Peter Thiel’s venture firm the latest casualty of the fallout from the collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX exchange. BlockFi was bailed out this summer by Bankman-Fried after it suffered losses on loans to the collapsed hedge fund Three Arrows Capital. In the