The European Central Bank might not have completed a series of rate cuts that began in June 2024, Vice President Luis de Guindos said Thursday, the Wall Street Journal reported. The ECB last week left its key interest rate at 2% for the second straight meeting, with inflation having settled at its 2% target. It had previously cut eight times in a year. Some investors have concluded that the central bank has finished with rate cuts, since inflation is at its 2% target and forecast to settle at that level after a 2026 dip.

A former boss of one of Britain's oldest business groups has been banned from holding company directorships for 11 years after abusing a state-backed emergency loan scheme for businesses struggling during the COVID pandemic, Reuters reported. Britain's Insolvency Service said on Thursday that it had barred Anna Daroy, a 61-year-old former director general of the Institute of Directors (IoD), after she secured two 50,000 pound ($68,085) "Bounce Back" loans for a management consultancy in 2020 when companies were only entitled to one.

UK taxpayers have lost £400m following the collapse of hundreds of startups backed by a heavily criticised Covid-era investment fund launched by Rishi Sunak when he was chancellor, the Guardian reported. The Future Fund spent £1.14bn backing 1,190 companies, some of them of types not usually associated with government portfolios such as the sex party organiser Killing Kittens and the now defunct festival tickets business Pollen. The fund also invested nearly £2m in companies linked to Sunak’s wife, Akshata Murty.

Crypto firms in Britain could be exempted from rules that ensure financial services companies act with integrity and in the interests of customers, under new proposals outlined by the Financial Conduct Authority on Wednesday, Reuters reported. The move comes after Britain signalled in April it would cooperate on the best approach towards digital assets with the United States, which has embraced the crypto industry and vowed to roll back regulatory curbs under President Donald Trump.

A Yorkshire scaffolding director has been ordered to fully repay £100,000 in Covid loans plus more than £15,000 interest, or face 12 months in prison, ConstructionNews.co.uk reported. Mark Degnan had already paid back £55,608 before he appeared at Leeds Crown Court on Monday (15 September) but could face 12 months in jail if he fails to repay the remaining £59,578 within six months, according to the Insolvency Service. Officials at the Insolvency Service said that he had “cynically exploited” the Covid loan scheme meant to help small businesses during the pandemic.

Scottish DJ and producer Calvin Harris has filed an arbitration demand accusing his former financial advisor, Thomas St. John, of stealing $22.5 million intended for real estate investments, MusicBusinessWorldwide.com reported. The legal action, filed last week in Los Angeles Superior Court, claims that St. John directed the funds instead toward a Hollywood “boondoggle” development project. The timing of Harris’s legal action is particularly striking. It arrives just a few months after US-based company, Thomas St.

Nearly 20% of Russian property developers are on the brink of bankruptcy due to falling sales and high interest rates, and that figure could soon exceed 30%, Pravda.com reported. The most vulnerable are companies that build mass housing and are dependent on mortgage demand. More than 19% of property developers are officially postponing completion dates, and delays of more than six months put projects in the "problem" category, the FISU said. Investment in property fell by 44% in the first half of 2025.