Nigel Farage, who helped mobilize the pro-Brexit vote in 2016, was marginalized in Britain, then consumed by the pandemic. No longer: For three weeks, Mr. Farage, has been back on the front pages of British papers, with an attention-grabbing claim that his exclusive private bank, Coutts, dropped him as a customer because of his polarizing politics. Early on Wednesday, after Farage’s allegations were largely vindicated, the chief executive of his bank’s parent, NatWest Group, resigned after she admitted improperly discussing his bank account with a BBC journalist.

The Bank of England forecast on Tuesday that it would make a net loss of just over 150 billion pounds ($193 billion) over the next 10 years as it unwinds its quantitative easing (QE) gilt purchases, up from 100 billion pounds projected in April, Reuters reported. That loss will need to be funded by the government, at a time when public finances are already under pressure from rising interest rates and inflation, and members of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's Conservative Party want tax cuts before a likely 2024 election.

Steinhoff International Holdings NV shareholders had little choice but to vote to dissolve the shell of the scandal-hit global retailer on Wednesday, drawing a line under a 5-1/2 year saga that turned into a windfall for lawyers and advisers, Bloomberg News reported. Those who have held stock via listings in Frankfurt or Johannesburg stand to gain little after the creditors who control the company get paid. But outside parties have received €447 million ($495 million) since late 2017, according to annual reports, and managers have also continued to be remunerated.

City AM, the London-based business newspaper, is close to calling in administrators after a weeks-long search for a buyer failed to produce a solvent deal, SkyNews.com reported. Sky News has learnt that the directors of the title's parent company are preparing to appoint BDO, the accountancy firm, to commence an insolvency process in the coming days.

The Romanian Ministry of Economy announced that it sanctioned the tour operator Kusadasi with a fine and, in addition, withdrew its operating license following the inspection carried out after the agency filed for insolvency, Romania-Insider.com reported. Inspections found that the tour operator sold travel services whose total value exceeds the sum insured by guarantee instruments, thus breaching provisions of Art. 18, paragraph (1) of Government Ordinance nr. 2/2018.

UBS Group AG will pay a total of about $387 million in fines related to misconduct by Credit Suisse Group AG in its dealings with Archegos Capital Management as the new owner of the collapsed Swiss rival starts picking up its legal tab, Bloomberg News reported. In a consent order with the Federal Reserve, UBS agreed to pay $268.5 million for “unsafe and unsound counterparty credit-risk management practices” at Credit Suisse, which UBS acquired in June.

French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said that billions of euros of promised tax cuts will be spread out gradually over several years as the government tries to reduce its budget deficit, Bloomberg News reported. President Emmanuel Macron has pledged to slash a further €2 billion ($2.2 billion) in taxes on households and had planned to complete the second half of an €8 billion reduction in a levy on industrial production, known as CVAE, in 2024.

A proposed 2.7 billion pound ($3.5 billion) mass lawsuit against major banks including JPMorgan and Citigroup over alleged foreign exchange rigging was revived by a London court on Tuesday, Reuters reported. The case was originally brought by Phillip Evans, a former inquiry chair at Britain's Competition Markets Authority, on behalf of thousands of asset managers, pension funds and financial institutions.

Britain's data regulator said on Tuesday it will examine Worldcoin, a project by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman where users provide their iris scans in exchange for a digital identification and free cryptocurrency, Reuters reported. "We note the launch of WorldCoin in the UK and will be making further enquiries," a spokesperson for the Information Commissioner's Office told Reuters. Worldcoin launched on Monday with two million users from its trial, with the crypto project scaling up eyeball-scanning operations in 20 countries, including at sites in London.

SBB, the embattled landlord at the center of Sweden’s property crisis, received demands from a group of bondholders to make sweeping changes, in an escalation of tensions over efforts to close a looming funding gap, Bloomberg News reported. The creditors, advised by PJT Partners, demanded that Samhallsbyggnadsbolaget i Norden AB — as the company is formally known —appoint two new board members and a chief restructuring officer, according to a letter seen by Bloomberg News.