British government debt rose to the highest level in almost 60 years last month and retail sales slumped, underscoring the scale of the economic challenges facing whoever replaces Prime Minister Liz Truss after her administration imploded under the weight of its failed financial plan, the Associated Press reported. Public borrowing rose to 98% of economic output in September as rampant inflation increased interest payments on what the government owed, the Office for National Statistics said Friday.

Hungary will include variable-rate loans to small- and medium-sized businesses in a scheme designed to cap loan rates and avoid a recession, Minister for Economic Development Marton Nagy said, adding banks could "easily" bear the cost of the measure, Reuters reported. With inflation above 20% and still rising, and the economy slowing, Prime Minister Viktor Orban's government faces the challenge of curbing price growth while trying to stave off a recession. It has already capped the price of fuel and basic foodstuffs as well as mortgage rates. Energy bills are also capped for most households.

Liz Truss said on Thursday she would resign as prime minister, brought down by her economic programme that sent shockwaves through the markets and divided her Conservative Party just six weeks after she was appointed, Reuters reported. A leadership election will be completed within the next week to replace Truss, who is the shortest serving prime minister in Britain's history. George Canning previously held the record, serving 119 days in 1827, when he died.

Customers of German cryptocurrency bank Nuri (formerly known as Bitwala) are being urged to withdraw their money before December 18 in order for the “company to be terminated and liquidated,” BollyInside.com reported. Due to the lengthy crypto bear market and macroeconomic factors, Nuri filed for insolvency in August. Trading will be available through November’s end. “Over the past three months, we have worked closely with our insolvency administrators on a restructuring plan during the preliminary insolvency proceedings and have looked for a possible acquisition to carry on our story.

The National Bank of Ukraine kept its key rate unchanged at 25% on Thursday, a level it said was forecast to be maintained until the second quarter of 2024 as it grapples with high inflation fuelled by Russia's invasion, Reuters reported. The central bank, led by new Governor Andriy Pyshnyi, said it expected a 32% GDP contraction in 2022, a slight improvement on its earlier forecast, and that the economy was "livening up" after falling sharply when the war began eight months ago.

The UK Treasury is set to transfer more than £11 billion ($12.4 billion) to the Bank of England this fiscal year to cover projected losses in its bond-buying program, Bloomberg News reported. The capital transfer was detailed in an update to the “Central Government Supply Estimates” published on Tuesday by the Treasury. The new £11.175 billion injection is listed under “assistance to financial institutions - payment to the Bank of England.” Parliament is set to debate the contents of the statement on Monday. The BOE is to begin unwinding its quantitative easing program next month.

British food prices rose at the fastest pace since 1980 last month, driving inflation back to a 40-year high and heaping pressure on the embattled government to balance the books without gutting help for the nation’s poorest residents, the Associated Press reported. Food prices jumped 14.6% in the year through September, led by the soaring cost of staples such as meat, bread, milk and eggs, the Office for National Statistics said Wednesday. That pushed consumer price inflation back to 10.1%, the highest since early 1982 and equal to the level last reached in July.

A surge in bad loans awaits UK banks as higher interest rates saddle homeowners with an estimated £52 billion ($58.6 billion) of added mortgage payments over the next three years, an analyst warned as he downgraded his ratings on several lenders, Reuters reported. The jump in costs will help push the personal debt service burden toward about 10% of post-tax income and further into the “dangerous territory” traditionally associated with large increases in impairments, Keefe, Bruyette & Woods analyst Ed Firth wrote in a note to clients on Wednesday.

A plan to give the British government power to override watchogs would raise "serious concerns" about the ability of regulators to oversee the City as a global financial centre, Bank of England Deputy Governor Jon Cunliffe said on Wednesday, Reuters reported. While Britain remains home to Europe's biggest financial sector after its exit from the European Union, banks are keen for regulators to help boost the City's global competitiveness.

Ireland's central bank is to ease mortgage-lending limits to allow first-time property buyers to borrow up to four times their income, in a move it said could help meet growing building costs but could also modestly push up prices, Reuters reported. The central bank introduced limits in 2015 capping how much banks can lend for the purchase of a home relative to its value and the borrower's income in a bid to prevent a repeat of excessive lending that devastated the economy over a decade ago.