Barclays said on Thursday that it expected to spend an additional 1 billion pounds, or about $1.5 billion, over the next three years to meet new regulatory requirements intended to shield its retail customers from other parts of the bank during any future financial crisis, the International New York Times reported. The British bank cut its profitability target for 2016, saying that the coming structural changes required by regulators in Britain and in the United States would drag on its results. The changes include the so-called ring-fencing of its retail operations in Britain.

Britons are finally as well-off as they were before the crisis, the Office for National Statistics has said, with households benefiting from higher earnings and rising employment, the Financial Times reported. However, the gains have not been equally shared: workers are still poorer than they were in 2007/8, while retirees are significantly better off. The figures are a boost for George Osborne, suggesting that living standards in the UK are finally higher than before the crash, thanks to economic growth and a strengthening labour market.

The fate of emerging market currencies is looming ever larger in the outlook for interest rates in The House of Lords, Parliament’s upper chamber, issued a rare rebuke to the government Monday over plans to cut tax rebates for working families, a widely unpopular part of a budget-cutting strategy that would affect thousands of British householdsm The Wall Street Journal reported.

Standard Chartered, the Asia-focused bank based in London, said on Monday that it planned to exit its equity derivatives and convertible bonds units as its new chief executive, William T. Winters, reshapes the company, the International New York Times reported. The decision to wind down those businesses followed the bank’s decision to close its institutional cash equities, equity research and equity capital markets operations in January.

“Constant tinkering” with pensions rules is saddling British business with unmanageable cost and compliance burdens, company chiefs have warned, the Financial Times reported. The CBI employers’ group surveyed 160 businesses employing more than half a million people and found that eight of out 10 executives think the government should stop making changes to the pensions regime, after complex reforms. Business leaders are also concerned staff may stop saving for their retirement if tax benefits continue to be eroded as pensions become more complicated, the CBI found.

AIB and Bank of Ireland are among a number of banks who have been criticised in the UK for not working hard enough to compete for customers, the Irish Times reported. However, in a move that will be welcomed by Britain’s biggest financial institutions, none are to be broken up or forced to ditch free banking services to improve competition in the industry.

Barclays appears to be considering ways to defy the strict separation of its high street operations from its investment bank, in a move likely to inflame the debate over whether rules designed to prevent a second banking crisis are being watered down, The Guardian reported. The bank, which is poised to name ex-investment banker Jes Staley as its next boss, is considering a plan that would put its retail banking arm under the ownership of its investment bank. Although temporary, the arrangement could last years.

Tata Steel, the biggest steelmaker in Britain, may cut about 1,200 jobs as part of plans to restructure its struggling operations, it said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. The move would be another blow to the UK steel sector, hit by weak steel prices, after the liquidation of the UK's second-largest steelmaker SSI UK was announced this month. Tata plans to halt production of steel plate, which would lead to about 900 job losses in Scunthorpe in northern England and 270 in Scotland, plus a small number at other sites, it said in a statement.

Time is running out to save the British steel sector, steelmakers and unions warned on Friday following news of hundreds more possible job cuts, Reuters reported. Tata Steel, the biggest steelmaker in the country, is expected to cut around 1,200 jobs at its Scunthorpe plant in northern England, a union source said earlier. The firm has already cut thousands of UK jobs since it entered the sector in 2007. A Tata spokesman said it continued to review the performance of its business, without addressing reports of job losses.

British banks may be forced to increase the capital they keep on hand by as much as $5 billion to comply with new rules intended to protect their British retail banking businesses in a financial crisis, the Bank of England said on Thursday, the International New York Times reported. The central bank is requiring British lenders with more than 25 billion pounds, or about $38 billion, to wall off their retail banking operations in the country by 2019, a practice known as ring-fencing.