London home sellers cut asking prices by the most in more than six years this month, adding to signs that the property market in the UK capital is coming off the boil, the Irish Times reported. London values fell 5.9 per cent from the previous month to an average £552,783 (€688,269), the biggest drop since December 2007, property website Rightmove said today. Nationally, prices declined 2.9 per cent, a record for an August. While property demand usually weakens during the summer, Rightmove said the slump this year was steeper than it expected.

The revival of subprime lending has gathered pace after Provident Financial bought a car finance group that provides loans to customers who would be shunned from traditional lenders, the Financial Times reported. It follows a period of rapid growth for Provident, a doorstep lender that has benefited from rising profitability by offering loans and credit cards to riskier and credit-impaired borrowers. Provident said it had bought Moneybarn, the subprime car finance company, for £120m. It is its first acquisition since the financial crisis.

Zodiac Pool Solutions SAS, the Paris-based swimming pool and spa manufacturer, filed Thursday for bankruptcy protection in the U.S. as part of its debt-restructuring effort now under way in the U.K., The Wall Street Journal reported. Formerly known as Zodiac Marine & Pool, Zodiac Pool filed for protection under Chapter 15—the section of the Bankruptcy Code that deals with international insolvencies—in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del.

The original Mastertronic actually disappeared in the mid-90s, but it was reborn in 2004 when one of its co-founders, Frank Herman, helped negotiate the purchase of the name from Sega. Sadly, the UK-based games publisher, now known as the Mastertronic Group, is once again facing a bleak future, as it has announced plans to close its headquarters, lay off 40 percent of its staff and completely exit the business of publishing physical copies of games, PC Gamer reported.

Britain’s Serious Fraud Office said on Thursday that it had reached a second settlement in a series of civil claims brought by two brothers after a flawed investigation into the collapse of the Icelandic bank Kaupthing during the financial crisis, the International New York Times DealBook blog reported.

Top bankers in Britain will become directly accountable for their actions under proposals unveiled by regulators on Wednesday, with those behaving recklessly facing jail, Telegraph.co.uk reported. The Bank of England’s Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) will also publish final rules on clawing back bonuses paid to bankers found guilty of misconduct, and consult on closer scrutiny of how awards are made. Bonuses handed to “code staff”, those who take the biggest risks at a bank, will be subject to a clawback lasting seven years from when they were awarded, Sky News reported.

Britain’s Serious Fraud Office said on Friday that it would pay 3 million pounds, or about $5.1 million, to settle civil claims brought by a property developer following a flawed investigation into the collapse of the Icelandic bank Kaupthing during the financial crisis, the International New York Times DealBook blog reported.

The number of recorded personal insolvencies has reached its lowest level in nearly a decade, according to official figures, BBC News reported. The Scottish government said more people were using its debt payment programmes to manage their finances. Enterprise Minister Fergus Ewing described the figures as "encouraging". However, the figures also showed a rise in corporate insolvencies, with 250 Scottish firms failing in the second quarter of 2014.

Britain and other non-euro states are at risk of losing their influence over financial legislation as single currency members pursue their banking union project, respondents to a UK Treasury review have warned, the Financial Times reported. The report into the balance of power between Westminster and Brussels recorded strong backing for Britain’s membership of the single market, with leading companies saying it was a key reason for their decision to locate in London.

Britain’s antitrust authorities said on Friday that they expected to open a formal investigation into the country’s retail banking industry, citing potential barriers to competition that include the control of a national network of branches by four big banks that offer free banking to many customers, the International New York Times DealBook blog reported. If the inquiry proceeds as expected, it could challenge the dominant role of Britain’s big four: the Lloyds Banking Group, Royal Bank of Scotland, HSBC and Barclays.