Markets

Chancellor George Osborne has called the manipulation of LIBOR rates by Barclays traders "a shocking indictment" of the greed of the financial sector, while confirming RBS and HSBC are also under investigation.

The UK economy shrank by 0.3% in the first quarter, the final official reading has confirmed.

Markets were unfazed by the hefty fines facing financial institutions and posted gains around the world overnight.

RBS and Lloyds, the two UK tax-payer backed banks, are among a dozen financial groups being investigated for manipulating the LIBOR rate, which resulted in a record £290m regulator fine for Barclays, it was revealed yesterday.

Annual costs have reduced returns of the average equity fund by 27.9% over a ten-year period, a Lipper report has revealed.

Barclays has been slapped with the largest-ever fine by the FSA and a huge penalty by the US authorities after it breached rules regarding LIBOR.

Hargreaves Lansdown is confident its business model has the flexibility to cope with the ban on platform rebates proposed today by the Financial Services Authority (FSA).

German chancellor Angela Merkel has again ruled out the creation of jointly-issued eurozone debt ahead of a crucial summit in Brussels this week.

Glencore is under pressure to improve the terms of its $30bn offer for Xstrata after the latter proposed new compensation arrangements, and a leading shareholder came out against the deal.

Fred Goodwin, the former CEO of Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) stripped of a knighthood for his role in the bank's near collapse, is among several former RBS directors fighting claims they were at fault for the lender's troubles.