Andrew Bailey: Private credit should have looser rules than banks December 11, 2025 Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey has said regulation of the booming private credit sector should be more light-touch than traditional lenders despite the central bank’s fears that a blow-up of the industry remains one of the most significant threats to UK financial stability. Bailey told an online event that the fallout from a banking [...]
FTSE 100 Live: BoE rate decision in focus after Fed cut December 11, 2025 Good morning from the Morning Wire liveblog team. Last night the US Federal Reserve met and agreed to lower interest rates by a quarter-point to between 3.5 and 3.75 per cent. But it was far from a tranquil meeting, with policymakers battling it out over whether to prioritise high inflation or a poor labour market. [...]
FTSE 100 Live: Reeves scrutinised, Fed interest rates decision, stocks suffer December 10, 2025 Good morning and welcome back to the Morning Wire liveblog covering the FTSE 100 and other big market moves. Rachel Reeves is set for a showdown with MPs on the Treasury Select Committee later today while the Federal Reserve is expected to slash interest rates by 25 basis points by the evening. Reeves will begin [...]
Interest rates: Bank of England hawks to ‘look through’ Budget’s disinflation December 9, 2025 Bank of England policymakers struck a hawkish tone on the future path of interest rates despite acknowledging that the upcoming Budget would lower inflation. Appearing before MPs on the Treasury Select Committee, Bank staff analysis agreed with the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) that measures in Rachel Reeves’ November statement would strip 0.5 percentage points [...]
FTSE 100 Live: Reeves to be grilled, interest rates nerves, Netflix swoop, Employment Rights Bill December 8, 2025 Good morning and welcome back to the Morning Wire liveblog covering the FTSE 100 and other big market moves. Rachel Reeves is set to be grilled by MPs at the Treasury Select Committee later this week on the Budget while economists will begin looking ahead to the final interest rates decisions of the year to be made [...]
Bank of England decision to cut interest rates could be ‘closer call’ December 5, 2025 The Bank of England’s expected decision to cut interest rates by 25 basis points could be a “closer call” than markets predict, analysts have said. Markets have all but priced in interest rates falling to 3.75 per cent at the Bank’s next decision in mid-December after a flurry of data points pointed to a continued [...]
Bank of England: Businesses cut staff at fastest pace since pandemic December 5, 2025 British businesses cut jobs at the fastest rate since the pandemic in the run-up to Rachel Reeves’ Autumn Budget. A closely-watched survey from the Bank of England, which quizzes finance directors on their staffing levels, showed employment in the private sector fell by 1.8 per cent in November – the steepest monthly decline since July [...]
Bank of England launches groundbreaking private credit stress test December 4, 2025 The Bank of England has launched its first ever stress test of the fast-growing private credit industry, in a bid to establish how the opaque sector would respond to a range of economic and financial shocks. The undertaking, called a ‘system-wide exploratory scenario exercise (SWES)’, will work with some of the industry’s biggest players to [...]
Lloyds boss: Forcing banks to hoard capital is slowing UK growth December 4, 2025 The boss of Lloyds Banking Group has called on the government to take its deregulation mission further to ramp up economic growth. Charlie Nunn, chief executive of Lloyds Banking Group, welcomed recent regulatory progress, including the Chancellor’s Leeds Reforms package, but added “they are just at the start – there is more to do”. “The [...]
Growing threats to UK financial stability December 4, 2025 What keeps you up at night? For the governor of the Bank of England it’s a long list of threats to the UK’s financial system – so let’s take a look at them. The Bank of England’s latest financial stability report makes for a sobering read. It says “risks to financial stability have increased during [...]