Business

The Bank of England has cut interest rates by another quarter percentage point, bringing down the cost of borrowing to 4.5%. And in a sign that households can expect more cuts in the months to come, two members of the Bank‘s Monetary Policy Committee said they would have preferred to reduce rates even more, by

Let’s start with the simple bit: interest rates have been cut – down by another quarter percentage point to 4.5%. But what happens next? Not long ago, the answer was quite simple: the Bank of England would carry on cutting borrowing costs, one quarter point cut every three months, until they reached, say, 3.5%. That,

Tesco has expressed interest in acquiring more than 100 Crown Post Offices whose future has been placed under review as the state-owned company explores shifting them to a franchise model. Sky News has learnt that Nigel Railton, the Post Office chairman, told a group of MPs this week that Britain’s biggest retailer had informed it

An arms race for artificial intelligence (AI) supremacy, triggered by recent panic over Chinese chatbot DeepSeek, risks amplifying the existential dangers of superintelligence, according to one of the “godfathers” of AI. Canadian machine learning pioneer Yoshua Bengio, author of the first International AI Safety Report to be presented at an international AI summit in Paris

The Treasury Select Committee has sent a formal notice to HM Revenue & Customs demanding answers to critical questions about how it has been enforcing trade sanctions on Russia, following a Sky News investigation into the government department. Last month Sky News reported that while HMRC had issued six fines in relation to sanction-breaking since

What if Britain has, almost entirely by accident, navigated itself into about the best possible position it could be in, as Donald Trump embarks on a trade war with nearly all his economic partners? I realise this might, at first, sound a little odd. After all, when the world is facing economically-destructive measures (blanket tariffs

Donald Trump has ordered sweeping tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China, kicking off a trade war that will affect the globe. Here we look at the tariffs and what they all mean for the world: What did Trump announce? The US president has confirmed that goods from Mexico and Canada will face 25% tariffs, while

The UK economy is forecast to improve more slowly than previously predicted after stagnant growth late last year. The EY ITEM Club expects UK gross domestic product (GDP) to grow by 1% in 2025, down from a previous estimate of 1.5%. The economic forecaster is the latest influential group to cut its predictions amid continued

Barclays says an IT glitch that left some customers locked out of their accounts has been resolved after the disruption entered a third day. The bank said the “technical issue” has been fixed and delayed payments processed. In a statement on Sunday, Barclays said: “We are working on bringing balances up to date for some

Barclays has advised customers to seek help from friends and family or even contact food banks after a major IT glitch left some locked out of their accounts. Hundreds of people reportedly claim they are experiencing interrupted services and missing funds after the issue struck on what was payday for many British workers and the

Barclays has advised customers to contact food banks after a major IT glitch left some locked out of their accounts – with the disruption likely to continue today. The bank has warned that some customers may see an outdated balance, and payments made or received may not show following the initial outage on online and

Donald Trump has said he will place 25% tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico and 10% tariffs on goods from China from Saturday. The move raises fears of price increases for US consumers as the US president suggested he would try to blunt the impact on oil imports. He has been threatening the tariffs

The UK’s benchmark stock index has reached another all-time high, in a month of record breaking. The FTSE 100 index of most valuable companies on the London Stock Exchange closed at 8,666.65, breaking the record set on Thursday night after four consecutive days of rises. January has been the best month in more than two

India’s richest family has clinched a landmark deal to buy a 49% stake in the Oval Invincibles in a deal that will unite the London-based team with the ownership of the Indian Premier League’s Mumbai Indians. Sky News can exclusively reveal that the Ambani family, who have a fortune estimated to be tens of billions

Shares in Microsoft have fallen sharply after investment spending came in higher than expected in its latest results, released just days after the DeepSeek market shock for tech stocks. The company, which has received reprimands from shareholders previously over AI-related bills, had already let it be known it expected to spend $80bn this year ahead

Lidl has been given approval by a High Court to open its first ever pub in Northern Ireland. The German supermarket chain will be able to move forward with the plan to open a bar inside its store in Dundonald, near Belfast, after a judge dismissed an appeal brought by another trader. Making the ruling

Don’t, whatever you do, call it a “relaunch”. When the chancellor stands up and delivers her much-anticipated speech on Wednesday – with all sorts of exciting schemes for new infrastructure and growth-friendly reforms – she will cast it as part of the new government’s long-standing economic strategy. Having begun the job of repairing the public

Quiz Clothing, the troubled fashion business, is close to collapsing into administration days after its shares were delisted from the London stock market. Sky News has learnt that Quiz, which is chaired by the former JD Sports chief Peter Cowgill, is lining up Teneo as administrator in a move expected to take place before the

The average asking price to rent a home outside London has fallen for the first time since before the COVID pandemic, according to a property website. Rightmove credited improved levels of rental properties for the welcome shift, but declared that advertised private rents in the capital continued to tick up, for a 13th consecutive quarter,

One of Britain’s biggest luxury boat manufacturers has collapsed into administration less than two months after it was sold to new investors. Sky News has learnt that Fairline Yachts, which is based in Oundle, Northamptonshire, had fallen into insolvency proceedings after DF Capital, the company’s main lender, triggered the appointment of Alvarez & Marsal (A&M)