David Cameron’s hopes of agreeing an international deal on fighting tax evasion suffered a blow when Bermuda said it would not commit to a pact before next week’s summit of the Group of Eight leading economies, the Financial Times reported. UK officials fear that if some British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies fail to come into line, it could limit the scope for an ambitious agreement at the summit in Lough Erne, Northern Ireland.

Britain will give its strongest indication yet that it is ready to return part-nationalised Lloyds Banking Group and Royal Bank of Scotland to private ownership later this month, political and industry sources said, Reuters reported. Chancellor George Osborne will signal the time is right to offload the government's 81 percent shareholding in RBS and a 39 percent stake in Lloyds in his annual Mansion House speech to financiers on June 19, the sources said on Monday. The government pumped a combined 66 billion pounds into the banks to keep them afloat during the 2008 financial crisis.

Ireland was given a “back-door bailout” worth around £10 billion (€11.5 billion) by Britain in “an arrangement that was never explicitly approved by parliament”, according to a report today, the Irish Times reported. The London Times claims Ulster Bank has accounted for about a quarter of losses since 2008 at the state-owned Royal Bank of Scotland, which is 81 per cent owned by British taxpayers after a £45 billion state bailout five years ago.

Pay and bonuses in Britain's financial services sector remain excessive and encourage risk-taking, according to those working in it, undermining efforts by politicians and regulators to reform an industry blamed for its role in the financial crisis, Reuters reported. Britons struggling in the economic downturn have been infuriated by financial services companies, particularly banks rescued by the government at the height of the crisis, which continue to dole out rewards many times the average wage.

Scottish business insolvencies have remained at an all-time low rate of just 0.03 per cent for five months in succession, a report out today discloses, Scotsman.com reported. Meanwhile, the UK insolvency rate has now stayed at 0.08 per cent for a whole quarter – February to April – for the first time since 2007. Analysts said the survey, from global information services group Experian, indicated that despite Britain’s subdued economic picture the trading environment was becoming more stable and there was greater resistance to business failure.

The Co-operative is weighing a rescue plan for its banking subsidiary that could impose losses on the unit’s junior bondholders to bolster its capital levels, the Financial Times reported. The UK funeral-to-supermarkets group is working through its options with advisers UBS and Allen & Overy to fill in a deficit in regulatory capital at its banking division, which Barclays analysts have estimated at between £800m and £1.8bn.

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.

A rise in “zombie debtors” – people paying only the interest charges on their debt and not the debt itself – is masking the difficulties faced by many households in the UK, according to insolvency experts, the Financial Times reported. RSM Tenon, the accountancy group, has revealed a fall in personal insolvencies so far this year and says the figures point towards a reduction for 2013, to levels last seen in 2005.

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.