London’s investment banks are luring back traders and analysts they lost to brokerage firms during the credit crisis, compensating for lower bonuses by as much as doubling base salaries, Bloomberg reported. “The banks are killing the boutiques,” said Daryl Bowden, co-chief executive officer of ICAP Plc’s equities unit in Europe and Asia. The London-based firm is the world’s largest broker of trades between banks. “They’re doubling salaries and offering above-average compensation.

The seasonally adjusted Live register rose to by 3,300 to 426,700 in December the highest level in almost 15 years, new figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) showed today, The Irish Times reported. Unemployment rose to 12.5 per cent in December, a 0.1 per cent rise on the 12.4 per cent recorded in the third quarter of the year by the Quarterly National Household Survey. Labour leader Eamon Gilmore said the increase cast "serious doubts" on Taoiseach Brian Cowen's claims that the recession has bottomed out and accused the Government of indifference.

Iceland's finance minister will meet with some of his Nordic counterparts on Friday to persuade them to keep vital credit lines open to the cash-strapped nation, a government spokesman said on Thursday. Steingrimur Sigfusson will meet with Norway's finance minister on Friday before flying on to Copenhagen to meet with his Danish counterpart, Icelandic finance ministry spokesman Elias Jon Gudjonsson said. Read more.

The last time Iceland and the U.K. went to war it didn't end well for the British, The Wall Street Journal reported in an editorial. This time the squabble isn't related to fish; it's about money and a sunken savings account called Icesave, from Iceland's Landsbanki. It is a story of colossal folly. At risk is Icleand's future membership of the European Union and $5.7 billion that the British and Dutch governments say they are owed.

Iceland was warned on Tuesday that it risked international isolation after the country’s president blocked a deal to repay Britain and the Netherlands almost €4 billion ($5.7 billion, £3.6 billion) lost in a failed Icelandic bank, the Financial Times reported. The British and Dutch governments condemned the decision by president Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson and hinted at repercussions for Iceland’s bid to join the European Union and for its $10 billion international economic rescue programme.

There will be no bail-out of Greece by other European Union countries, a top European Central Bank official has said, according to the Financial Times Money Supply blog. “The markets are deluding themselves when they think at a certain point the other member states will put their hands on their wallets to save Greece,” Jürgen Stark, an executive board member, told Italian newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore.

Greece rejected speculation that it will need a bailout to tackle the European Union’s biggest budget deficit as officials fly in from Brussels to scrutinize tax and spending plans. “We don’t expect to be bailed out by anybody as, I think, is perfectly clear we’re doing what needs to be done to bring the deficit down and control the public debt,” Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou said in an interview with Bloomberg Television today.

Van der Moolen Holding NV, the 117- year-old bankrupt Dutch stockbroker, will sell cars, champagne buckets and bronze statuettes of Mercury, the Roman god of trade, in an online auction to repay debt, BusinessWeek reported on a Bloomberg story. Receivers, appointed by an Amsterdam court to settle about €28.3 million ($40.8 million) of debt, have hired a company to sell items including office furniture, flat-panel televisions and dish washers, according to the auctioneer’s Web site.

President of Iceland Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson is still contemplating whether to veto the Icesave legislation, which the Icelandic parliament passed on December 31, Iceland Review reported. The number of signatures on the petition urging the president to veto the legislation so that it will be up for a national referendum is still growing. Last night it had reached 62,000 signatures, which represents a quarter of Icelandic voters.

Britain is in danger of succumbing to a budgetary crisis this year, with the economy likely to stay in the doldrums until at least the end of 2010, a Financial Times survey of economists warns. Asked to name the three biggest risks to the economy, 37 of the 79 economists polled said the UK was threatened by a fiscal crisis that could derail any revival. The economists said the government must make its plans to improve the public finances more transparent and credible if Britain was to avoid the fiscal crises that have engulfed Greece and Ireland.