Accountants still fail to question banks properly over how they make provisions for poorly performing loans on their books, auditing policeman Financial Reporting Council (FRC) said on Wednesday, Reuters reported. The criticism goes to the heart of regulatory efforts since the 2007-09 financial crisis to restore investor confidence in the figures lenders publish about their health. The FRC said in its annual report it was concerned and disappointed there had been no significant improvement in auditing loan-loss provisions at banks and building societies in Britain.

The International Monetary Fund urged the U.K. government to counter the effects of its austerity program by raising spending on infrastructure projects to avoid long-term damage to the nation's growth prospects, The Wall Street Journal reported. Launched in 2010, the austerity program is the government's cornerstone policy, and Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne has indicated he won't change course. The IMF had been a backer of the plan, allowing Mr. Osborne to use the fund's approval to validate his measures to improve the country's public finances.

Thomas Cook Group, the debt-laden travel operator, launched a £1.6bn capital restructuring on Thursday as part of its bid to return to normal trading after flirting with collapse in late 2011, the Financial Times reported. The lossmaking travel group, which is midway through a restructuring programme, said it would raise £425m through a rights issue and share placement. It also plans to sell £441m of bonds, and has renegotiated a £691m debt facility.

Five years after rescuing one of the world's biggest banks, the British government still hasn't figured out what to do with it—a sign of the country's struggle to put its banking woes behind it, The Wall Street Journal reported. Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC received a bailout of £45 billion, or about $70 billion, in 2008. Today, it remains 81%-owned by U.K. taxpayers, and a return to private hands is unlikely soon, according to government officials. Under pressure from the Bank of England, officials at the U.K.

A Northern Ireland company which owns one of Belfast’s iconic pubs has been placed into administration. John Hansen and Stuart Irwin of KPMG were appointed Monday to Botanic Inns and its parent company Kurkova Limited, which owns 16 outlets including the flagship pub the Botanic Inn, or “The Bot”, as it is known locally. The joint administrators say it is their intention that the venues, which employ 600 people in the greater Belfast area, will continue to trade as normal. Botanic Inns, which was originally a family business, dates back to 1857.

Liquidators for Scottish Coal, KPMG, said on Friday they were in talks regarding the possible sale of parts of the business, Reuters reported. The company ran out of cash last month, putting 600 jobs at risk and closing mines that are major suppliers to Britain's power stations. "Over the last few days we have been in discussion with a variety of parties who have expressed an interest in the business or more precisely certain parts of it," accountancy firm KPMG said. No names were disclosed.

Tax havens such as Bermuda and the Cayman Islands will work more closely with Britain and other European countries to fight tax evasion, British finance minister George Osborne said Thursday, the Irish Times reported. With governments in most advanced economies short of tax revenue after the financial crisis, pressure has been growing on small territories with big banking sectors to lift bank secrecy and do more to combat tax dodging and money laundering.

Britain avoided slipping into its third recession in recent times during the first quarter of 2013, a rare bit of welcome economic news for the government, but it continues to struggle to deliver even modest sustainable growth, The Wall Street Journal reported. The U.K. government took a bold gamble on a program of government-spending cuts when it took office in 2010, but it has faced increasing criticism of its austerity program as the economy has stagnated.

Britain finds out on Thursday if its stagnant economy has slipped back into recession, a week after the International Monetary Fund urged Chancellor George Osborne to consider scaling back his austerity programme. Economists estimate that Britain's $2.4 trillion (1.5 trillion pounds) economy eked out growth of 0.1 percent in the first three months to March, according to a Reuters poll. That would avoid a second quarter of contraction - the definition of a recession - after it shrank by 0.3 percent in the last three months of 2012.

At least one of Britain's major banks should be broken up into smaller regional lenders, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who sits on an influential banking reform committee, said on Monday, Reuters reported. Justin Welby, spiritual head of the Anglican Church, spoke in a personal capacity, but his comments offer insight into the thinking of the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards which has the role of cleaning up Britain's banking culture.