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Ministers have delayed plans to raise the state pension age to 68 amid falling life expectancy in the UK and warnings from Tory MPs that the move could provoke a backlash from middle-aged voters. The state pension age, currently 66, is due to increase to 68 after 2044. The government wanted to bring this forward

Shares in First Republic tumbled again on Monday after its credit rating was cut for the second time in the space of a week, a decision that came following depositors pulling tens of billions of dollars from their accounts. The bank’s shares, which have fallen more than 80 per cent in March, were down 30

UBS agreed to buy Credit Suisse for $3.25bn after a frantic weekend of negotiations brokered by Swiss regulators to safeguard its banking system and attempt to prevent a crisis spreading across global financial markets. The historic deal follows five days in which the Swiss establishment raced to end a deepening crisis at Credit Suisse that

Credit Suisse, UBS and their key regulators are racing to thrash out a deal on the historic merger of Switzerland’s two biggest banks as soon as Saturday evening, people familiar with the situation told the Financial Times. The Swiss National Bank and regulator Finma have told international counterparts that they regard a deal with UBS

UBS is in discussions to take over all or part of Credit Suisse, with the boards of Switzerland’s two biggest lenders set to meet separately over the weekend to consider what would be Europe’s most consequential banking combination since the financial crisis, according to multiple people briefed on the talks. The Swiss National Bank and

The largest US banks have banded together to deposit $30bn into First Republic Bank in an attempt to bolster its finances and contain the fallout from the collapse of two big lenders in the past week. JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup and Wells Fargo will each deposit $5bn into First Republic, a California-based lender.

Jeremy Hunt has delivered a defiantly upbeat Budget that offered a £9bn tax break for business, an extension of free childcare and a surprise pension boost for the well-off. The chancellor on Wednesday claimed Britain’s economy was “proving the doubters wrong”, as he announced a 100 per cent tax break for business investment to try

Jeremy Hunt will on Wednesday announce billions of pounds to boost business investment and measures to bolster Britain’s workforce, including a big expansion in free childcare, in a “Budget for growth”. The chancellor has pledged that business will be the main beneficiary of any tax cuts in his Budget, but he is constrained by a

The failure of Silicon Valley Bank has torn into global markets, with investors ripping up their forecasts for further rises in interest rates and dumping bank stocks around the world. Government bond prices soared on Monday, with the two-year US Treasury yield recording its biggest one-day drop since 1987, as fund managers raised bets that

The Federal Reserve announced an emergency lending facility on Sunday to shore up the US banking system, and said another bank had been closed, as it tried to stem contagion after the implosion of Silicon Valley Bank. In a statement, the Fed said it would make additional funding available to eligible depository institutions to “help

UK chancellor Jeremy Hunt was on Saturday locked in talks over how to stop the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank from dealing a heavy blow to Britain’s tech sector. More than 200 UK-based tech company executives have urged Downing Street to step in, warning that many companies faced an “existential threat” because they banked with

Silicon Valley Bank was shuttered by US regulators on Friday after customers withdrew $42bn — a quarter of its total deposits — in one day and a failed effort to raise new capital called into question the future of the tech-focused lender. With about $209bn in assets, SVB has become the second-largest bank failure in

Investors wiped $52.4bn off the market value of the four largest US banks by assets on Thursday amid a widespread sell-off of financial stocks that analysts linked to investor fears over the value of lenders’ bond portfolios. The sell-off in JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup and Wells Fargo appeared to have been sparked by

EY has “paused” its plan to split in two amid a fierce dispute over how much of its tax business should stay with the audit side of the firm. Julie Boland, the head of EY’s US business, who has been picked to run EY after it spins off its consulting arm, told partners on a

Jay Powell warned the US Federal Reserve is prepared to return to bigger interest rate rises to fight inflation at a congressional appearance on Tuesday. In his first public intervention since data releases showed the central bank struggling to cool the US economy despite a year-long campaign of monetary tightening, the Fed chair signalled his

Taiwan’s president Tsai Ing-wen has convinced US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to meet in California rather than Taipei to avoid an aggressive Chinese military response, as tensions run high between Beijing and Washington. Several people familiar with the situation said Tsai and McCarthy had agreed to meet in the US because of Taiwanese security concerns.

One of Credit Suisse’s longest-standing shareholders has sold its entire stake in the scandal-hit Swiss bank after losing patience with its strategy amid persistent losses and a client exodus. US investment manager Harris Associates, whose deputy chair and chief investment officer David Herro was for years among the Swiss bank’s most prominent supporters, owned as

Federal Reserve officials are converging around the need to keep US interest rates high for longer, reflecting concern about recent hotter-than-expected inflation data and worries about global economic trends that could fuel price pressures. “In order to put this episode of high inflation behind us, further policy tightening, maintained for a longer time, will probably

The Financial Conduct Authority has been blamed by some UK officials and SoftBank staff for London losing out to New York on the blockbuster stock market listing of chip designer Arm. SoftBank, the Japanese owner of the Cambridge-based semiconductor company, this week dashed Rishi Sunak’s hopes of retaining the homegrown tech giant, rejecting entreaties from

Fears for the future of the London stock market are mounting after SoftBank and the world’s largest building materials group shunned the City in favour of New York. SoftBank this week rejected a London listing for Cambridge-based chip designer Arm despite an intense lobbying effort from three successive prime ministers, according to two people with