The Bank of England is investigating the collapse of a £2bn British “shadow bank” as fears about the sector rip through stock markets, The Telegraph reported. Officials at the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) have requested information from lenders including Barclays that backed Market Financial Solutions (MFS), a private credit provider that was placed into administration amid allegations of fraud last week.

Once again, some of Wall Street’s most sophisticated players missed the warning signs, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis. When Market Financial Solutions went to raise money from private-credit funds in 2021, it was a little-known British mortgage company specializing in short-term loans for quick property purchases. The firm’s fundraising materials provided sparse details on its chief executive, Paresh Raja, and offered financial information that diverged widely from its public financial reporting, according to documents reviewed by the Wall Street Journal.

A total of 7,553 new insolvency proceedings were opened in the country in 2025, the latest study by Coface Romania showed, a 3.84% increase compared to 2024, Romania-Insider.com reported. The top three sectors in terms of the number of companies that entered insolvency last year are wholesale and retail trade/repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles (1,844), construction (1,580), and transport and storage (939), accounting for approximately 58% of the total number of insolvencies recorded in 2025.

A couple have been barred from being company directors for "tricking" investors out of more than £2m by fabricating an NHS contract, BBC.com reported. Tanveer Khan, 55, was described as the "mastermind" behind the forgery of a fake order by NHS Wales for hundreds of beds worth £9.8m, falsifying evidence of previous deliveries, the Insolvency Service said. Khan, and his wife Tasneem, 51, founded Matz Medical Limited in 2013, running it together until it collapsed in October 2022, leaving creditors £40m out of pocket.

The leader of West Dunbartonshire Council has claimed the local authority could face bankruptcy within several years, as a council tax rise of 7.8% was confirmed for the region, BBC.com reported. Martin Rooney urged political parties and independent elected members to work together to solve a £9.2m deficit facing the local authority. Rooney said that the only options available for the council to raise money were increasing council tax, increasing sales fees and taxes, using reserves, management adjustment and savings.

The interest rate on student loans is a lightning rod for criticism and should be cut, according to the architect of fees trebling to £9,000 under the coalition government, The Times reported. Lord Willetts, the former universities minister, said the interest rate and salary repayment thresholds needed regular reviews to ensure the survival of the student loan system. “There will always be economic and political changes," he said. "The system to survive has to be sensitive to political pressures. Instead we’ve had a series of ad hoc changes, in both directions.

Three European Central Bank policymakers warned on Thursday that euro zone inflation would ‌likely rise, and growth sag, if the war in Iran were to become drawn out and suck in more countries, Reuters reported. As the U.S.–Iran war entered its sixth day, the conflict has widened beyond Gulf states and into Asia, convulsing global markets and raising questions about the ECB's benign outlook ​for the euro zone.

Britain’s unemployment rate has surged ahead of Italy’s for the first time since the depths of the financial crisis, The Telegraph reported. Fresh data on Italy’s jobless rate show it has now fallen below the UK’s, as Sir Keir Starmer steers his economy in a radically different direction to that of Giorgia Meloni, his counterpart in Rome. The jobless rate in Britain hit 5.2pc at the end of last year, its highest level since the worst moments of the pandemic. That is up from 4.4pc a year earlier.

Swiss inflation was unchanged in February close to zero, a worry for the country’s central bank after it voiced increased willingness to intervene in foreign-exchange markets to halt recent gains in the franc, the Wall Street Journal reported. Consumer prices were up 0.1% compared with February last year, the same rise as in January, Switzerland’s statistics agency said Wednesday. Swiss inflation was last negative in May.