The Co-operative Bank PLC was in fresh turmoil Monday after saying it needs another £400 million ($659.4 million) in capital, just months after securing a £1.5 billion rescue deal, The Wall Street Journal reported. The bank, which was saved from likely failure last year by bondholders and its part owner, Co-operative Group Ltd., said it was hit by costs around products wrongfully sold to customers and other unexpected charges, forcing it to tap shareholders for more cash.

George Osborne on Wednesday unveiled the biggest pensions revolution for almost a century, in a Budget aimed at savers and the grey vote that sent shares in insurance companies into a tailspin, the Financial Times reported. The chancellor stunned the pensions industry by announcing plans to give people far more freedom to choose what they do with their pension pot, outlining plans to change rules which effectively force people to buy an annuity at retirement.

More than £5bn in disputed tax liabilities will be dragged out of the bank accounts of tax avoiders and restored to Treasury coffers, the chancellor claimed. George Osborne hopes a tougher "pay now, argue later" approach to more than 30,000 of the richest and most sophisticated tax avoiders in Britain will help HM Revenue & Customs deal with its costly backlog of dispute cases, while generating revenues to fund measures announced elsewhere in the budget, The Guardian reported.

With a little over a year to go until the next general election, the U.K. government's austerity program was supposed to be entering its final year around now. Instead, U.K. Finance Minister George Osborne on Wednesday is expected in his twice-yearly budget speech to confirm that spending cuts will be needed until well beyond the next election, The Wall Street Journal reported. When he became Chancellor of the Exchequer in mid-June 2010, Mr.

A former Treasury official commissioned by the Co-op Group to examine how it incurred a £1.5bn financial black hole is being paid £2,000 a day by the debt-laden mutual, The Guardian reported. Sir Christopher Kelly was handed the lucrative deal by Euan Sutherland, the Co-op chief executive who walked out last week when his pay arrangements were leaked to this newspaper. Kelly was hired nine months ago to examine decisions made by the Co-op in the period leading to its discovery of a deep capital shortfall. He is expected to report in May.

Barclays chief executive Antony Jenkins says he was forced to increase bonus payments to senior executives after hundreds of key staff left the investment bank in America and he feared a “death spiral” could grip the organisation, The Guardian reported. Revealing the reasons behind the controversial decision to increase bonuses by £200m in 2013 despite profits falling at Barclays, Mr Jenkins said that he had to act or the investment division would suffer.

Some of Britain's banks are still offering their staff pay incentives that could trigger more mis-selling of financial products, the country's markets watchdog said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said significant progress had been made in stamping out poor selling practices, but found around one in 10 of the companies it examined still had risky sales practices. The issue of mis-selling remains sensitive in the wake of a series of scandals.

Part-nationalised Royal Bank of Scotland is working on a plan to salvage its troubled Irish business, Ulster Bank, by merging it with a number of rivals, the Sunday Times newspaper reported. Attempts to find a buyer for the business have failed and a team inside RBS is looking at tie-ups between Ulster and other lenders, such as Permanent TSB or the Irish units of Danske Bank or KBC, the newspaper reported. Bolting the institutions together could allow the new Ulster Bank to strip out costs and mount a credible challenge to Ireland's top players.

A landmark ruling will have a game-changing effect on the way landlords are paid in a corporate collapse, essentially giving them super creditor status. But what impact will this have on other creditors, and the insolvency profession? A consortium of landlords appealed and won a case that will see them repaid £3m in back rent due prior to the collapse of digital game retailer GAME from the new owners of the business, AccountancyAge reported.

The Co-operative Group has announced plans to sell its farms business and is considering a sale of its pharmacy chain as it faces a reported loss of more than £2bn, The Guardian reported. Britain's biggest mutually owned company, which is preparing for its worst ever loss according to a BBC report on Wednesday morning, considers the farming business – the biggest in the UK – to be peripheral to its main activities and in need of investment.