Just when Britain's banks would have loved some positive publicity, the City watchdog - the Financial Services Authority - has said they were guilty of serious failings in the way they sold complicated products to small businesses that were supposed to protect those businesses from sharp rises in interest rates. In practice, some of these swaps or interest-rate hedging products increased the borrowing costs of struggling companies or prevented them from...

The news first: an influential shareholder tells me investors may demand the resignation of Marcus Agius as chairman of Barclays. The main reason, he says, is that the bank may need a cultural overhaul, and investors are not persuaded Mr Agius - who is also a non-executive member of the BBC's executive board - is the right individual to oversee this. If that seems unfair, in that many would say the chief executive...

Barclays has admitted that a group of traders lied about what it was costing the bank to borrow. Now, why does this matter? It matters because lots and lots of deals involving clients of Barclays used the interest rate into which Barclays was feeding this information, about its own borrowing costs, to determine the profit and loss on their own deals. It's quite hard to think...

Barclays has admitted that a group of traders lied about what it was costing the bank to borrow. Now, why does this matter? It matters because lots and lots of deals involving clients of Barclays used the interest rate into which Barclays was feeding this information, about its own borrowing costs, to determine the profit and loss on their own deals. It's quite hard to think...

In its £290m settlement with the Financial Services Authority in the UK, and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and Department of Justice in the US, Barclays has owned up to something very simple and - many would say - profoundly shocking: for four years between 2004 and 2009, it lied about the interest rate it was having to pay to borrow. Here is today's statement from the CFTC: "Barclays….attempted to...

Barclays has admitted that a group of traders lied about what it was costing the bank to borrow. Now, why does this matter? It matters because lots and lots of deals involving clients of Barclays used the interest rate into which Barclays was feeding this information, about its own borrowing costs, to determine the profit and loss on their own deals. It's quite hard to think...

There are two huge and related problems in the global banking system. First is a growing credit crunch within the eurozone, as weak eurozone banks cut back their cross-border lending and - increasingly - their domestic lending too (there is a chilling analysis today of the so-called Balkanisation of eurozone banking by Morgan Stanley, which is critical of the limited banking union proposed by eurozone leaders as a solution)....

There has been speculation about how Rupert Murdoch would seek to protect the bulk of his business interests, which are in television and film, from the reputational and financial damage being caused by the hacking and alleged bribing scandal at his UK newspapers. The answer, or so it seems, is that their company, News Corporation, would be split into two separate companies. The larger one would hold the television and entertainment assets, such as 20th...

Royal Bank of Scotland says it has fixed what it calls the "technical failure" that has disrupted banking services for millions of NatWest, RBS and Ulster Bank customers on a scale and for longer than has ever happened at any British bank since they went computerised. But given that it is still impossible for many of its depositors to see up-to-date balances and that the bank warns there may be further "bumps in the road", it may not...

Ahead of Thursday evening's announcement from Moody's that it is downgrading 15 global banks and securities firms, I spoke to the chief executive and chairman of a couple of very large banks. And they both said that the problem with Moody's analysis was that it was backward looking. They both knew their respective banks would be downgraded, so they were getting their defence in early. But Moody's main rationale for all these downgrades - of US, Swiss,...