Britain is to restrict consumers' use of credit cards to buy crypto and their access to crypto lending products, the regulator said on Friday, a move aimed at improving protection as cryptoassets are regulated for the first time, Reuters reported. The finance ministry this week said it would bring cryptocurrencies under compulsory regulation, with exchanges, dealers and issuers all coming under the existing rulebook.

The Bank of England is expected to lower interest rates by a quarter point on May 8 as U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs darken the global growth outlook, and some economists think the BoE will soon need to speed up its gradual approach to rate cuts, Reuters reported. BoE Governor Andrew Bailey, speaking in Washington last week after the International Monetary Fund downgraded UK and global growth prospects, said he was taking "very seriously" the risks posed by Trump's tariffs.

A cryptoasset business registered in the UK has been shut down after people from multiple countries said they paid for crypto mining services but did not receive the promised financial returns and were unable to withdraw their assets, according to a U.K. Insolvency Service press release. BTCMining Limited claimed to operate a cryptoasset mining business, where customers would pay the company to mine crypto and receive any resulting income.

Talks between the UK and India on a free trade agreement have entered the final stretch, with both sides now wrangling over five unresolved issues, according to an official in New Delhi familiar with the matter, Bloomberg News reported. India’s Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal will tackle some of these issues during his two-day visit to the UK that begins Monday.He is scheduled to meet Business and Trade Secretary Jonathan Reynolds and Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves.

Homelessness represents the "single biggest risk" to council finances and may cause effective bankruptcy, according to the organisation that represents London boroughs, BBC.com reported. London Councils, a cross party group that represents all 32 boroughs and the City of London, estimated that councils in the capital had been forced to overspend on their homelessness budgets by at least £330m in 2024-25. Local authorities have a legal duty to provide temporary accommodation to anyone who qualifies as homeless - the number of which has risen in recent years.

Nearly one-tenth more companies went insolvent in England and Wales in March than the same time last year, according to new figures, The Independent reported. The number of registered firms that went bust was 1,992 last month, according to the Insolvency Service, a 2% fall compared with February but a 9% increase compared with March 2024. Creditors’ voluntary liquidations (CVLs), when the directors of a company choose to close it down, made up the majority of the numbers, at 1,543, an 8% year-on-year rise.

There were 1,175 Scottish corporate insolvencies in the year 2024-2025 - a slight increase of 0.6% from 2023-2024’s figure of 1,168 - and up 3.8% on 2022-2023’s figure of 1,132, Insider.co.uk reported. The latest Accountancy in Bankruptcy report showed that there were 294 corporate insolvencies in the fourth quarter, compared with 301 during the same period in 2023-24 - a decrease of 2.3%. There were 128 voluntary liquidations in in the fourth quarter, up by a third from 96 year-on-year.

Rachel Reeves is to follow Donald Trump in closing a tax loophole exploited by Chinese online giants Shein and Temu as she seeks a US trade deal, The Telegraph reported. The Chancellor is preparing to change a statute in the UK tax code, known as the de minimis rule, which means products worth less than £135 are exempt from UK import duties. The decision comes after the US and EU both moved to scrap it following a flood of cheap Chinese goods undercutting local businesses.