George Osborne, Britain’s chancellor of the exchequer, fresh from a decisive election victory, pledged to recast the country’s economy by cutting welfare spending, lowering the tax bill for workers and tackling low productivity, the Irish Times reported. “The Budget will take Britain from a low-wage, high-tax, high-welfare economy, to the higher-wage, lower-tax, lower-welfare country we intend to create, ” Mr Osborne said.

Tom Hayes admitted he asked colleagues at UBS as well as traders and brokers at other firms to help him rig Libor rates, but insisted that his managers were fully aware of what he was doing. The former trader, who also worked at Citigroup, is the first person in the global Libor investigation to face trial. Taking the stand at Southwark Crown Court on the first day of his defence on Tuesday, he said: “Everything I did was with complete transparency.

Britain is planning to sell half its stake in Royal Bank of Scotland, worth £16 billion, within two years, according to sources have said, the Irish Times reported. Chancellor of the exchequer George Osborne has indicated that he wants to begin reducing the government’s £32 billion stake in the coming months, but the sources said the shares will be sold at a faster rate than previously expected, making it likely the government will take a substantial loss on the initial sales.

A winding-up petition brought by creditors against the Lotus Formula One team has been adjourned for two weeks, Reuters reported. A spokeswoman for the Companies Court in London said on Monday that the claim against the Enstone-based team, title winners in a previous existence as Benetton and Renault, would be heard on July 20. Lotus, who now race with Mercedes engines, have had financial problems although the signing of Venzuelan Pastor Maldonado has brought considerable backing from state oil company PDVSA.

The founding father of UK’s bank ringfencing has dismissed the idea that by pushing retail banking units into standalone entities they could “go wandering off” and disregard parent groups’ strategy, the Financial Times reported. Some senior bankers have attacked new rules that force the biggest lenders to hive off their consumer lending operations into separately governed and funded structures, arguing that they will lose control of a key part of their business.

Banks will be able to claw back bonuses from their most senior managers for up to a decade under rules published on Tuesday by UK regulators, the Financial Times reported. The Prudential Regulation Authority and Financial Conduct Authority said in a joint statement on Tuesday that they were pushing ahead with rules for a wider seven-year clawback period, but that a further three years is being considered for the top tier of banks’ management where regulators find problems, to run concurrently with a seven-year bonus-deferral period.

The scandal which enveloped the Co-operative Bank was reawakened on Tuesday when the bank revealed it was facing fines from City regulators over the events that led to its near collapse two years ago, The Guardian reported. The bank is now just 20% owned by the Co-operative Group of supermarkets and funeral homes after an emergency fundraising was required to plug a £1.5bn shortfall uncovered in 2013. Control passed to hedge funds and other private investors after the rescue.

A 13 billion pound mortgage portfolio put up for sale by the "bad bank" charged with winding down the assets of two failed British lenders has lured interest from several possible bidders, the group's boss said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. UK Asset Resolution (UKAR), which is selling off the loans of bailed-out Northern Rock and Bradford & Bingley, said in April it was selling the portfolio, named Granite, along with its mortgage servicing operations, aiming to speed up the repayment of taxpayers' money.

Can misbehaving bankers be reined in? In the wake of seemingly endless banking scandals, Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of England, promised on June 10th to do just that. “The age of irresponsibility is over,” Mr Carney declared. The bank, the Financial Conduct Authority (a fellow regulator) and the Treasury hope to adopt and export a new model for regulating scandal-ridden fixed income, currency and commodities (“FICC”) markets. Recent wrongdoing in this area includes the rigging of LIBOR, a benchmark interest rate, and the manipulation of currency markets.

The British government is ready to exit the banking business, even if it means that it will record a loss on some of its holdings, the International New York Times reported. George Osborne, the chancellor of the Exchequer, said in a speech here on Wednesday night that the government would begin to sell down the 80 percent stake that it holds in the Royal Bank of Scotland. The speech was at the Lord Mayor’s annual banquet for the financial industry at the Mansion House in the City of London. The government is projected to sell some R.B.S. shares at a loss — at least initially.