Britain's new finance minister Kwasi Kwarteng unleashed historic tax cuts and huge increases in borrowing on Friday in an economic agenda that floored financial markets, sending sterling and British government bonds into freefall, Reuters reported. Kwarteng scrapped the country's top rate of income tax, cancelled a planned rise in corporate taxes and for the first time put a price tag on the spending plans of Prime Minister Liz Truss, who wants to double Britain's rate of economic growth.

A U.K. businessman is under investigation after claiming more than £500,000 in Bounce Back loans for 12 firms that later went bust, the Mirror reported. Sukhwant Singh Pahal used the Government scheme – set up to help small businesses survive the pandemic – to claim up to £50,000 per company. One of his firms, Beans Housing Ltd, also received £1.1million from Birmingham City Council in 2017 to accommodate the homeless. All 12 of Mr Pahal’s firms applied for voluntary liquidation in 2021 on insolvency grounds.

Russia's banks have lost an estimated 1.5 trillion roubles ($25.5 billion) as a result of the fallout from the conflict in Ukraine, a central bank official said on Friday, Reuters reported. Maxim Lyubomudrov, who heads the regulator's department that supervises the country's largest banks, said this was an "acceptable" level of losses and that the government had plans in place to support Russia's lenders through the crisis. Read more.

Russian employees at airlines and airports have started to receive conscription notices after President Vladimir Putin ordered a partial military mobilisation, the Kommersant newspaper reported on Friday citing sources, Reuters reported. Employees of at least five airlines, including Russian top carrier Aeroflot, and staff at more than 10 airports received notices within a day of Putin ordering the mobilisation, the paper reported.

The German government is in talks about providing urgent financial support for scores of regional state-owned energy providers which are struggling to cope with soaring gas prices, Reuters reported. The discussions centre on the critical network of hundreds of firms that supply energy and other vital services, such as water, to the country's homes and industry, underpinning Europe's biggest economy.

As Britain goes through a period of vast change, with a new government and new monarch, the central bank is steadily increasing interest rates to try to keep high inflation from becoming embedded in the nation’s economy, the New York Times reported. The Bank of England raised its key rate by another half a percentage point on Thursday, to 2.25 percent, taking it to the highest level since late 2008, but disappointing some who thought it would have made a three-quarter-point move.

Switzerland exited the era of negative interest rates on Thursday when its central bank joined others around the world in tightening monetary policy more aggressively to combat resurgent inflation, Reuters reported. The Swiss National Bank (SNB) raised its policy interest rate by 0.75 of a percentage point, ending the country's seven-and-a-half year experiment with negative rates which sparked opposition from its financial sector and fears of asset bubbles. The increase to 0.5%, from minus 0.25%, followed a 50 basis point hike in June from minus 0.75%, the SNB's first rate hike in 15 years.

Euro zone inflation is set to go higher and price growth is likely to be more persistent than earlier thought, European Central Bank board member Isabel Schnabel said on Thursday, defending the ECB's plans to raise interest rates further, Reuters reported. The ECB has lifted rates by a combined 125 basis points over its last two meetings to combat inflation that is nearing 10%, and markets have priced in further increases at each of the ECB's meetings through next spring.

Across northern and western Europe, vegetable producers are contemplating halting their activities because of the financial hit from Europe's energy crisis, further threatening food supplies, Reuters reported. Surging power and gas prices will impact crops grown through the winter in heated greenhouses such as tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers, and those which need to be placed in cold storage, such as apples, onions and endives. European farmers are warning of shortages.

Germany will nationalize Uniper, seeking to save the country’s largest gas importer that was hit hard by Russian natural-gas cuts to Europe, the Wall Street Journal reported. The German government said Wednesday that it would take a 99% stake in the energy giant and inject in €8 billion, equivalent to around $8 billion. Berlin will acquire the stake of Uniper’s parent company, Finnish utility Fortum Oyj. Uniper was Germany’s largest importer of Russian natural gas and suffered heavy financial losses after Moscow throttled supplies.