The rate of inflation in Britain slowed for a consecutive second month in December, but was still running in the double digits, maintaining a tight squeeze on household finances, the New York Times reported. Consumer prices rose 10.5 percent in December from a year earlier, down from 10.7 percent the previous month, with rising food prices and prices at hotels and restaurants offsetting lower gasoline and clothing prices, the Office for National Statistics said on Wednesday.

Britain's lenders are tightening eligibility criteria amid rising interest rates and a cost of living crisis, but demand for borrowing remains elevated, credit data firm Experian said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. Experian's key customers include banks, non-traditional lenders and insurance providers, which use its credit reports and scores to analyse and make decisions around credit risk, fraud prevention and lending terms.

The owner of Byron Burger has said it will shut nine restaurants after falling into administration, YahooFinance.com reported. Famously Proper, which owns Byron and fried chicken brand Mother Clucker, said it will cut 218 jobs as a result of the closures. The company was set up after private equity firm Calveton rescued Byron from a previous administration in 2020 following the impact of the pandemic. The company was set up after private equity firm Calveton rescued Byron from a previous administration in 2020 following the impact of the pandemic.

Struggling to remain financially viable, Eat Local Grey Bruce has asked Grey County council to provide $25,000 in direct funding to help the group continue to operate, YahooFinance.com reported. The local non-profit food cooperative that promotes healthy eating and locally grown and produced food recently announced that it is insolvent and may have to file for bankruptcy. In an effort to continue operating, the organization has launched a crowdfunding campaign, is trying to reorganize the business into a more sustainable model and is seeking new volunteers to revitalize the group.

The UK and European Union are nearing an agreement on customs aimed at reducing trade friction between Great Britain and Northern Ireland as they prepare to intensify wider post-Brexit negotiations, Bloomberg News reported. Officials hope to announce significant progress toward a solution for customs arrangements if discussions go well over the coming days, according to people familiar with the matter. Talks are ongoing and a successful outcome is not guaranteed, the people said.

German landlord Adler Group SA is preparing to overhaul its debt in the UK after getting support from a “sufficient majority” of its creditors for a deal, Bloomberg News reported. The company said it created a new English subsidiary — called AGPS BondCo Plc — as a principal debtor of all its bonds, in a move that will allow it to file a restructuring plan in England, according to a statement. Adler has been negotiating for months with its creditors after it was targeted by a short seller and hit by a slowdown in German property transactions.

Britain and the European Union have not yet entered a more intense phase of negotiations - the so-called negotiating "tunnel" - in their talks to amend post-Brexit trade rules for Northern Ireland, Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said, Reuters reported. Bloomberg reported on Thursday that the two sides are preparing to enter the more intense phase of the long-standing negotiations as soon as next week.

The Bank of England is not at the point in its interest rate-rising cycle where it needs to worry about the risk of over-tightening, Monetary Policy Committee member Catherine Mann said on Thursday, Reuters reported. "You have a lot of different ways of looking at it. My reading is we're not there yet," Mann said. The BoE raised its main interest rate to 3.5% in December from 3%; Mann voted for a bigger increase to 3.75%.

Britain’s foreign minister is meeting politicians and businesspeople in Belfast on Wednesday, bearing good news: The U.K. and the European Union are inching closer to settling a post-Brexit trade dispute that has brought economic headaches and political turmoil to Northern Ireland, the Associated Press reported. James Cleverly is traveling to Belfast two days after Britain and the EU made a significant breakthrough, striking a data-sharing agreement that will give the EU access to real-time information about goods moving to Northern Ireland from the rest of the U.K.

Barclays is joining forces with an insolvency specialist to try to recover millions of pounds of misappropriated loans advanced under the UK government’s Covid-19 bounceback scheme, the Irish Times reported. The bank is among the lenders that provided loans of up to £50,000 (€56,000) to small companies at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, which were guaranteed by the government. About £46 billion was given to companies with only minimal eligibility checks to encourage banks to lend quickly.