Years of stagnant wage growth have left more than 1m of Britain’s low-income households struggling with debt problems, according to a report from the TUC, the Financial Times reported. The trade union group argues that even though record-low interest rates have kept the cost of servicing debt at historic lows, many households are acutely financially vulnerable. Based on its analysis of official and survey data, the TUC report estimates that, of 1.6m households in what it terms “extreme problem debt”, 1.2m have an income of below £30,000.

At an English country mansion last month, lawyers for Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) sat down with representatives of angry shareholders to broker an end to what may end up being the costliest case in British legal history, Reuters reported. The meeting at The Grove, an 18-century estate near London that served as the secret World War Two HQ for Britain's biggest railway company, was convened to persuade investors to drop claims they were misled into stumping up 12 billion pounds ($16 billion) just a few months before the bank's bailout in 2008.

Big investment banks with their European headquarters in London will start the process of moving jobs from the UK within weeks of the government triggering Brexit, sources said. That is a faster timeline than their public messages of patience would imply, said sources briefed on the plans being drawn up by four of the biggest firms, the Irish Times reported. Dismayed by the lack of a clear plan to protect the UK’s status as a global financial hub, executives are planning for the worst – that they will lose the right to sell services freely around the European Union from the City.

British inflation rose to a higher-than-expected 0.6 per cent last month as the increasing cost of motor fuels and second-hand cars drove up transport prices, the Irish Times reported. Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation in July was up from 0.5 per cent in June, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said. Economists were expecting the figure to be unchanged.

The bed bank arm of Lowcost Travel Group, Lowcostbeds, had yet to enter insolvency this week, raising fears of knock-on failures and of holidaymakers arriving at hotels to find rooms unpaid for. Lowcost Travel ceased trading on July 15 with up to 300,000 customers of online agent Lowcost Holidays booked or abroad and a £65 million black hole in its accounts.

Brexit will come at a cost for the UK financial-services industry, no matter what agreement the government secures in its negotiations with the European Union, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), the Irish Times reported. Banks may be hit hard if Britain loses single-market access as companies would lose passporting rights that allow them direct access to clients in the EU, the London-based research group said in a report published on Wednesday.

The Bank of England has acted. Next up, the U.K. treasury, The Wall Street Journal reported. Economists say that new treasury chief Philip Hammond may need to relax a longtime spending squeeze or cut taxes to counter signs of a slowdown since voters’ surprise decision to exit the European Union. The BOE cut its benchmark interest rate to a historical low on Thursday and restarted bond purchases in an unexpectedly broad package of measures, reflecting its deep concerns over the potential cost of Brexit. In announcing sharply lower growth forecasts, Gov.

The Bank of England’s interest-rate cut Thursday buoyed stock markets here, but for some big British corporations, the move—the central bank’s first rate cut in seven years—is likely to translate into widening pension shortfalls, The Wall Street Journal reported. Many of the U.K.’s defined-benefit plans, which promise to pay out fixed benefits to retirees, have fallen deep into deficit. The value of contributions in many of the plans hasn’t kept up with expected outlays to pensioners in years to come.

There is an “evens” chance of Britain falling into recession by the end of next year, according to a leading economic think-tank, which called on the Bank of England to wield a “sledgehammer” against the expected downturn, the Financial Times reported. The National Institute for Economic and Social Research revised down its forecast for growth by 0.3 percentage points in 2016 and 1.7 percentage points in 2017 — larger downgrades than those made by the International Monetary Fund last month.

The Bank of England's stress tests are "worse than useless", according to a report claiming British banks would buckle under the strain of a major economic shock, BT.com reported. A study by the Adam Smith Institute said the Bank's stress tests are like a "ridiculously easy exam with a ludicrously low pass rate", which disguises the ability of UK banks to cope with an economic blow on the scale of the 2008 financial crisis. The report, which pinpoints 13 flaws in the stress test, said every single UK lender would currently fail "more rigorous" stress tests by the US Federal Reserve.