A group representing General Motors, Ford and Stellantis blasted President Donald Trump's trade deal announced with the United Kingdom, saying it would harm the U.S. auto sector, Reuters reported. British carmakers will be given a quota of 100,000 cars a year that can be sent to the United States at a 10% tariff rate, almost the total Britain exported last year, compared to 25% for Mexico and Canada and nearly all other countries. "Under this deal, it will now be cheaper to import a UK vehicle with very little U.S.

President Trump announced an agreement on trade with the U.K. on Thursday, the first in what the White House hopes is a series of such developments since it imposed tariffs against allies and adversaries, the Wall Street Journal reported. Trump teased the announcement on Truth Social earlier, calling the agreement “full and comprehensive,” and added: “Many other deals, which are in serious stages of negotiation, to follow!” U.K. officials said the pact isn’t a comprehensive trade agreement and will instead focus on reducing tariffs in specific sectors.

The Bank of England cut interest rates on Thursday, although the uncertain impact of U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs on economic growth brought a surprise three-way split among policymakers, Reuters reported. The BoE's rate-setters voted 5-4 in favour of cutting borrowing costs by quarter of a percentage point to 4.25%. Two members of the Monetary Policy Committee, Swati Dhingra and Alan Taylor, voted for a bigger half-point cut, while Chief Economist Huw Pill and external member Catherine Mann wanted to keep rates on hold.

Britain and India agreed to a trade deal on Tuesday, strengthening economic ties between two of the world’s largest economies amid President Trump’s upheaval of the global trade system, the New York Times reported. The deal, which the British government said would increase bilateral trade by 25.5 billion pounds ($34 billion), comes three years after the negotiations began. Intense talks to finalize the outstanding issues took place last week between Jonathan Reynolds, Britain’s business and trade secretary, and Piyush Goyal, India’s commerce minister.

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.