LONDON (Reuters) – A suite of simple financial products could encourage Britons to save more for retirement and restore faith in banks after a string of mis-selling scandals, a government-backed review said on Thursday.

Britain said winning back consumers, whose incomes are already being squeezed, will not be easy while experts cautioned that simple products tried in recent years largely failed.

LONDON, Aug 2 (Reuters) – A suite of simple financial
products could encourage Britons to save more for retirement and
restore faith in banks after a string of mis-selling scandals, a
UK government-backed review said on Thursday.

Britain said winning back consumers, whose incomes are
already being squeezed, will not be easy while experts cautioned
that simple products tried in recent years largely failed.

LONDON (Reuters) – The government will give its regulators new powers to wind down failing investment firms and clearing houses to avoid wreaking havoc in the wider market, saying the timing of similar European Union rules was too uncertain for it to wait.

The government already has powers to force a deposit-taking bank to be wound down in an orderly way and without needing taxpayer help.

LONDON, Aug 1 (Reuters) – Britain will give its regulators
new powers to wind down failing investment firms and clearing
houses to avoid wreaking havoc in the wider market, saying the
timing of similar European Union rules was too uncertain for it
to wait.

The UK already has powers to force a deposit-taking bank to
be wound down in an orderly way and without needing taxpayer
help.

LONDON, July 31 (Reuters) – Agreeing to recapitalise Spanish
banks without first determining precise losses may be a waste of
EU bailout money, an advisory committee to the European Central
Bank’s risk watchdog says.

Euro zone finance ministers have approved a loan of up to
100 billion euros to put several Spanish banks back on an even
keel but the result of in-depth audits into the sector has yet
to be completed.

LONDON, July 31 (Reuters) – Clearing houses must plan for an
orderly rescue and even their own demise to prevent their
growing importance in the financial system from becoming a
source of market disruption when things go wrong, global
regulators said on Tuesday.

The clearers, which stand behind trillions of dollars of
derivatives contracts, have become an important part of reforms
to the financial services industry after the collapse of U.S.
bank Lehman Brothers and near failure of insurer AIG.

LONDON, July 30 (Reuters) – Britain is seeking urgent reform
of the key interest rate rigged by a number of banks, including
Barclays, in a transatlantic scandal that is
threatening to seriously damage London’s reputation as a
financial centre.

The government on Monday set the terms for a swift review of
Libor, to be carried out by regulator Martin Wheatley in time
for recommendations to be included in a draft law making its way
through parliament.

LONDON, July 28 (Reuters) – Britain’s government is expected
to spell out on Monday the scope of a root and branch reform of
Libor, the interest rate benchmark that was rigged by Barclays
in a widening scandal that has damaged London’s
standing as a finance centre.

The UK Treasury is set to announce the remit for a review of
the rate at which banks are willing to lend to one other that is
being carried out by Martin Wheatley, a top official at the UK’s
Financial Services Authority regulator.

LONDON July 27 (Reuters) – Six members of an illegal UK
trading ring that netted 732,000 pounds ($1.15 million) were
jailed on Friday for what the judge described as deliberate,
planned and dishonest insider share dealing, marking another
coup in the regulator’s crackdown.

The four-and-a-half-month trial cost the UK’s Financial
Services Authority (FSA) 5 million pounds — the longest and
most complex prosecution to date in its “credible deterrence”
drive against market abuses.

LONDON, July 26 (Reuters) – The European Union’s market
regulator on Thursday criticised banks for painting an
incomplete picture of their Greek debt holdings last year when
they and the Greek government were negotiating a big writedown
on the country’s bonds.

With the banking sector still shunned by investors and
struggling to restore confidence after a slew of government
bailouts, the watchdog also faulted banks for giving the media
and analysts key information on Greek exposures which they
omitted from annual reports.