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.

Royal Bank of Scotland has received approval from Treasury agency UK Financial Investments to pay about 550 million pounds ($920 million) in staff bonuses for 2013, Sky News reported late on Tuesday. The news service said the bank is expected to disclose the proposed bonuses when it announces its annual earnings, estimated at a loss of about 8 billion pounds.

UK regional carrier Flybe is tapping shareholders for £150m (€182m) to shore up its balance sheet as the embattled airline tries to reinvent itself, Independent.ie reported. The airline, which serves some routes between the UK and Ireland, will also use the funds with a view to "improving operational flexibility and providing additional cash reserves to enable the group to protect itself from unforeseen disruptions or occurrences". Chief executive Saad Hammad said that the fresh finance would enable Flybe to pursue its "profitable growth strategy".

National Australia Bank Ltd. (NAB) fell in Sydney trading after flagging a possible increase in provisions at its British operations, overshadowing a 7 percent increase in first-quarter profit, Bloomberg News reported. Shares of Australia’s biggest bank by assets slid as much as 2.8 percent, the biggest intraday decline in three months, and traded 1.9 percent lower at A$34.50 at 11:53 a.m. in Sydney. Provisions for some tailored business loans and compensation to U.K. customers for wrongly sold payment-protection insurance may rise, the Melbourne-based lender said in a statement today.