Britons with billions of pounds hidden in Switzerland will pay tax at 50 per cent under a groundbreaking deal that will legitimise their undeclared assets, according to a source familiar with negotiations between the Swiss and British governments, the Financial Times reported. The agreement, which is expected to be announced this month, marks a shift in emphasis in the international crackdown on tax havens. Over the past two years, the focus has been on lifting bank secrecy and exposing evaders.

The prospect of an increase in U.K. borrowing costs any time soon diminished Wednesday following the publication of a dovish set of minutes from the Bank of England's April policy meeting and a survey showing a drop in Britons' inflation expectations, The Wall Street Journal reported. The hawks on the rate-setting Monetary Policy Committee have appeared tantalizingly close to winning over enough colleagues to secure a rate rise in recent months, but in April their arguments for tighter policy were overshadowed by worries about the U.K.'s hard-pressed consumers.

Three European asset management firms accused banks including Bank of America Corp., JPMorgan Chase & Co., HSBC Holdings Plc, Barclays Bank Plc, Citibank NA and Credit Suisse Group AG of conspiring to manipulate the London interbank offered rate, Bloomberg reported. The banks sold Libor-based futures, options, swaps and derivative instruments “at artificial prices that defendants caused,” harming investors, FTC Capital GmbH of Vienna, FTC Futures Fund SICAV of Luxembourg and FTC Futures Fund PCC Ltd. of Gibraltar said in an April 15 complaint in New York federal court.

The number of British companies in serious financial distress soared in the first quarter with restaurants, professional services businesses and the leisure industry in particular difficulty, a report showed, Reuters reported. Begbies Traynor, a corporate recovery company that helps wind up or restructure firms, said its Red Flag Alert database showed 186,554 UK businesses were facing significant or or critical problems in the first three months of this year.

British care home operator Southern Cross Healthcare said chairman Ray Miles would be replaced with non-executive director Christopher Fisher to help the company's restructuring drive, Reuters reported. "Given that my own experience has mainly been building businesses and improving their operational performance and that the company now faces a period of intense financial restructuring, it is time to hand over to others with more experience of this," Miles said in a statement on Tuesday.

The U.K.'s largest banks should hold more capital and ring-fence their retail banks from riskier investment banking operations under options laid out Monday by a government-appointed panel that are seen wiping billions of pounds off bank profits in order to protect taxpayers from future bail-outs, The Wall Street Journal reported. The Independent Commission on Banking, which has been tasked with coming up with ways to improve stability and competition in U.K.

Families will be hit by a spiralling debt crisis over the next four years that will see average British households plunge further into the red as the government austerity programme bites, official figures reveal, The Guardian reported. The Office for Budget Responsibility has raised its prediction of total household debt in 2015 by a staggering £303bn since late last year, in the belief that families and individuals will respond to straitened times by extra borrowing.

British drinks merchant Oddbins said it expects to go into administration on Monday after it failed to get the backing of major creditor Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs for a company voluntary agreement (CVA), Reuters reported. "As HMRC is a significant creditor, this means the CVA cannot proceed and Oddbins is expected to go into administration on Monday, 4th April, following the court hearing of the administration application," the company said in a statement on Thursday.

Electrical retailer Dixons Retail PLC Wednesday lowered its fiscal-year earnings target amid a slump in consumer confidence, heightening concerns about the performance of key U.K. high-street chains, The Wall Street Journal reported. Dixons Retail, the U.K.'s largest electrical retailer by market share, now expects underlying profit before tax, excluding operations in Spain, to be around £85 million ($136 million) for the year ending April 30, from a previous range of between £100 million and £110 million. The U.K.

A sale of the British taxpayer’s 65.8 billion-pound ($107 billion) stake in Lloyds Banking Group Plc and Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc (RBS) is likely to start next year, creating a one-time budget windfall before the next election, according to four people familiar with the talks, Bloomberg reported. Lloyds, 41 percent government-owned, will probably be offered to investors first as the London-based bank is better prepared for a sale, said the people, who declined to be identified because the discussions are private and the plans may change.