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.

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.

The British government announced details of a plan on Wednesday to cut energy costs for companies over the winter, after industry groups warned that soaring bills were threatening the survival of countless businesses, the New York Times reported. Beginning in October and lasting for six months, businesses, charities and other public-sector organizations, including schools and hospitals, will see the wholesale price per unit they pay for energy set at 211 pounds (about $240) per megawatt-hour of electricity and £75 for natural gas.

The Bank of England this week will consider whether to push through the biggest interest-rate increase in 33 years to respond to surging inflation and weakening confidence in British assets, Bloomberg News reported. With prices rising five times faster than the UK central bank’s 2% target and the pound falling almost daily, policy makers led by Governor Andrew Bailey are under pressure to step up the pace of monetary tightening.

The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority published a warning to consumers about Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto exchange FTX, saying it isn’t authorized by the regulator to offer financial services or products in the country, Bloomberg News reported. The regulator said on Friday on its website that Bahamas-based FTX “is targeting people in the UK,” adding that investors are “unlikely to get your money back if things go wrong” since they won’t be protected by the country’s ombudsman service and compensation scheme.

The number of companies in England and Wales declared insolvent jumped by 43% in August, according to government data, which adds to concerns for the health of the UK economy, The Guardian reported. There were 1,933 insolvencies in August, compared with 1,348 in the same month last year, the Insolvency Service said. It was 42% above the level in August 2019, before the Covid-19 pandemic hit. Economists are concerned that businesses will increasingly struggle as consumers cut back spending amid high inflation.

Much of the outward business of government in Britain is grinding to a halt during 10 days of national mourning until the state funeral for Queen Elizabeth II, when schools, doctors offices and many shops will close. But through it all, the financial markets have been grumbling with an unease about Britain’s economic outlook, the New York Times reported. High inflation and low economic growth are expected to continue, joined by vast borrowing to finance the new government’s plan to freeze energy bills while it cuts taxes.

Consumer prices in Britain rose 9.9 percent in August from a year earlier, a slight easing of the inflation rate and the first decline in nearly a year, signaling that inflation may have reached its peak, or be very near it, the New York Times reported. While this sign of a turnaround in the trajectory of inflation is likely to bring some relief to lawmakers and policymakers, it will provide only limited comfort to consumers.

Claimant groups planning multi-million pound lawsuits over a collapsed fund run by former star stock picker Neil Woodford said on Tuesday any redress of around 306 million pounds ($359 million) ordered by Britain's regulator would be too paltry, Reuters reported. Law firm Leigh Day, which represents around 13,000 clients in a lawsuit against Link Fund Solutions (LFS), the administrator of the flagship LF Woodford Equity Income Fund, said the figure was "nowhere near enough" to compensate thousands who had suffered financial losses.