HSBC FX accounts offer succour to Brits afraid of Brexit, Corbyn

HSBC Holdings Plc isn’t plastering Heathrow with its “world’s local bank” tagline anymore, but a Brexit-battered pound and a political swing to the left have spurred internationally minded Brits to snap up its foreign-currency accounts. Demand for HSBC Currency Accounts, which let customers hold cash in foreign currencies in the U.K., spiked 23 percent in […]

Wealth tax under attack as Scandinavians prepare to vote

Taxing the rich has become a political hot potato ahead of Norway’s election next month. On Tuesday, according to Bloomberg, the country’s biggest business group weighed in, saying the opposition Labor Party’s plan to raise the wealth tax by 5 billion kroner ($633 million) over the next four years could harm job creation. It even […]

Western firms tap Russian frontier oil as sanctions gap creates access

A gap in U.S. sanctions allows Western companies to help Russia develop some of its most technically challenging oil reserves, and risks undermining the broad aim of the measures, a Reuters review of company results and media releases have found. When Washington imposed the sanctions on Moscow in 2014 over its annexation of Crimea and […]

Hot and cold: Euro zone grows but inflation slows

Data in the coming week should confirm the euro zone economy is running hot, after the IMF upgraded growth forecasts and Greece returned to the debt market, although inflation figures could throw cold water on ECB plans to start tightening policy, according to Reuters’ report. Growth in the single currency area outstripped paltry expansion in […]

English shoppers shun plastic bag after 5 pence levy imposed

The number of plastic carrier bags handed out by large stores in England fell by 83 percent since they started charging a levy for their use, government data showed on Friday. The average shopper in England now takes home about 25 bags a year from the main supermarkets, compared with about 140 bags before the […]

ECB’s Draghi expected to remain cagey on stimulus exit plans

European Central Bank head Mario Draghi will face questions later Thursday about when and how the bank might withdraw its stimulus measures. Draghi is not expected to give much away at his news conference following the meeting of the bank’s 25-member governing council, at which no changes in the stimulus are expected. That’s out of […]