The Bank of England has signalled that it is unlikely to raise interest rates this year, as the strong pound and further falls in commodity prices keep inflation “muted” in the near term, The Telegraph reported. Sterling fell by more than a cent against the dollar and euro on Thursday as the minutes of its August interest rate meeting showed just one member of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) voted to raise rates this month. Markets expected more dissent within the nine-member panel.

British regulators said on Thursday that they had barred a former trader at the Dutch lender Rabobank from the securities industry after he pleaded guilty in the United States in March in connection with rigging a global benchmark interest rate, the International New York Times reported. The Financial Conduct Authority of Britain said the former trader, Lee Stewart, 52, had been barred from working in the British financial services industry for lacking “honesty and integrity.” The ban was put in place on July 21, the regulator said. In March, Mr.

Major banks and brokers have failed to make sufficient internal changes following the Libor and foreign exchange rigging scandals, according to the City regulator, The Guardian reported. The Financial Conduct Authority also warned that more action was needed to restore trust in the financial markets after visiting 12 firms and brokers as a follow-up exercise to the fines imposed for rigging Libor, the benchmark exchange rate. The FCA found that none of them had made all the changes required to comply with guidelines for setting prices.

Despite having its budget cut significantly in recent years the Insolvency Service has made orders against 119 rogue directors in the year ending 31 March 2015, compared to 65 the year before, economia reported. The government body has laid off more than a third of its workforce in recent years, going from 3,200 staff to 2,000. Accountancy firm Moore Stephens has called on the new government to back the Insolvency Service as, despite the crackdown, there is still too much criminal director behaviour slipping through the cracks.

U.K. Treasury chief George Osborne Tuesday announced plans to sell billions of pounds of publicly owned buildings and land in the latest stage of his 10-year plan to repair Britain’s public finances, The Wall Street Journal reported. As part of a review of government spending due in the autumn, the Treasury has asked government departments to earmark bits of their estates that could be sold to raise cash. Properties that may end up on the block include some of the Ministry of Defence’s 15 golf courses and dozens of prime central London offices.

Insolvency rates on the Isle of Wight are among the highest in the country according to latest figures, the County Press reported. They paint a bleak picture for the Island which has been ranked joint 18th in a league table of local authority areas with the highest levels of insolvency, and named in the top ten for the highest number of Debt Relief Orders (DRO). The figures, released by the Association of Business Recovery Professionals (R3), show the rate of individual insolvencies per 10,000 adult population.

An interim examiner has been appointed to Best, the company operating thirteen Best Menswear stores across Ireland and two other fashion stores employing 130 people, the Irish Times reported. The sudden closure of Clerys department store in Dublin last month had a “catastrophic” effect on the cashflow of Best as it was a concession holder operating its largest store from the Clerys premises, the court heard.

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.