Barclays profits jumped 44pc to £3.95bn in the first six months of the year boosted by a sharp drop in bad debts and its investment banking division. The investment bank, Barclays Capital, once again produced the majority of the profits with a trebling in earnings to £3.4bn. Charges for debts that have turned sour fell [...]
Interest rates will have to rise earlier and more sharply than expected to keep inflation under control, two former Bank of England policy-makers have warned. Sir John Gieve, an ex-deputy Governor, and Charles Goodhart, a previous member of the Monetary Policy Committee, are the most senior economists yet to have opposed the current orthodoxy that [...]
The Bank of England held interest rates at a record low level of 0.5pc as the economy remains officially mired in recession. The decision by the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee was expected as was its decision to maintain the size of its radical, quantitative easing programme at £200bn. The MPC has kept rates at a [...]