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Vladimir Putin has said Russia plans to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, marking Moscow’s latest attempt to use the threat of a nuclear war to ramp up tensions with the US and Nato over the invasion of Ukraine. Russia’s president said work would be completed on building storage units for tactical nuclear weapons in

Olaf Scholz rejected comparisons between Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse as a slump in the German lender’s shares sparked a further day of turmoil for the banking sector. Speaking after Deutsche shares fell 14 per cent, the German chancellor sought to shore up confidence in the country’s biggest bank, with investors still nervous after the

TikTok’s chief executive told US lawmakers that the viral video app would be kept “free from any manipulation by any government”, as he tried to head off a potential ban in the US. Shou Zi Chew faced bruising questioning in Congress on Thursday over the social media app’s links to its Chinese parent company ByteDance.

The Federal Reserve on Wednesday pressed ahead with its monetary tightening campaign despite the recent turmoil in the banking sector, raising its benchmark interest rate by a quarter of a percentage point and signalling another increase to come. Following its latest two-day meeting, the Federal Open Market Committee voted to lift the federal funds rate

Ministers have delayed plans to raise the state pension age to 68 amid falling life expectancy in the UK and warnings from Tory MPs that the move could provoke a backlash from middle-aged voters. The state pension age, currently 66, is due to increase to 68 after 2044. The government wanted to bring this forward

Shares in First Republic tumbled again on Monday after its credit rating was cut for the second time in the space of a week, a decision that came following depositors pulling tens of billions of dollars from their accounts. The bank’s shares, which have fallen more than 80 per cent in March, were down 30

UBS agreed to buy Credit Suisse for $3.25bn after a frantic weekend of negotiations brokered by Swiss regulators to safeguard its banking system and attempt to prevent a crisis spreading across global financial markets. The historic deal follows five days in which the Swiss establishment raced to end a deepening crisis at Credit Suisse that

Credit Suisse, UBS and their key regulators are racing to thrash out a deal on the historic merger of Switzerland’s two biggest banks as soon as Saturday evening, people familiar with the situation told the Financial Times. The Swiss National Bank and regulator Finma have told international counterparts that they regard a deal with UBS

Investors have wiped nearly half a trillion dollars from the value of bank shares around the world in the worst rout for the financial sector since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. Financial stocks dived this week as the fallout from the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank spread through global markets. Banks in the US,

The largest US banks have banded together to deposit $30bn into First Republic Bank in an attempt to bolster its finances and contain the fallout from the collapse of two big lenders in the past week. JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup and Wells Fargo will each deposit $5bn into First Republic, a California-based lender.

Jeremy Hunt has delivered a defiantly upbeat Budget that offered a £9bn tax break for business, an extension of free childcare and a surprise pension boost for the well-off. The chancellor claimed on Wednesday that Britain’s economy was “proving the doubters wrong”, as he announced a 100 per cent tax break for business investment to

The world’s largest private investment firms are exploring the purchase of loans from the remains of Silicon Valley Bank after the collapse of the tech-focused lender last week. Blackstone Group, Apollo Global Management, KKR, Ares Management and Carlyle Group are among the buyout groups examining SVB’s $74bn loan book for pieces that might fit into

The failure of Silicon Valley Bank has torn into global markets, with investors ripping up their forecasts for further rises in interest rates and dumping bank stocks around the world. Government bond prices soared on Monday, with two-year US Treasury yields recording their biggest one-day drop since the financial crisis of 2008, as fund managers

The UK chancellor is preparing a dramatic intervention to provide a lifeline to scores of tech businesses as he seeks to contain the damage caused by the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank. Jeremy Hunt said on Sunday there was “a serious risk” to tech and life sciences companies that used SVB’s UK bank, with senior

UK chancellor Jeremy Hunt was on Saturday locked in talks over how to stop the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank from dealing a heavy blow to Britain’s tech sector. More than 200 UK-based tech company executives have urged Downing Street to step in, warning that many companies faced an “existential threat” because they banked with

Silicon Valley Bank was shuttered by US regulators on Friday after a rush of deposit outflows and a failed effort to raise new capital called into question the future of the tech-focused lender. With about $209bn in assets, SVB has become the second-largest bank failure in US history after the 2008 collapse of Washington Mutual,

Russian billionaires Mikhail Fridman and Petr Aven are primed to offload their stakes in Alfa-Bank in a $2.3bn sale of Russia’s largest private lender, as they seek to free themselves from western sanctions. The oligarchs’ longtime business partner Andrei Kosogov, who has not been targeted by sanctions, has agreed to buy the Russian bank for

The head of one of Britain’s largest insurers has decried the “perpetual drift” of companies away from London’s stock market, saying that a low-growth economy and political infighting had eroded the UK’s appeal. The decisions last week by CRH, the world’s largest building materials group, and UK chip designer Arm to shun London in favour

Jay Powell warned the US Federal Reserve is prepared to return to bigger interest rate rises to fight inflation at a congressional appearance on Tuesday. In his first public intervention since data releases showed the central bank struggling to cool the US economy despite a year-long campaign of monetary tightening, the Fed chair signalled his

Taiwan’s president Tsai Ing-wen has convinced US Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy to meet in California instead of in Taipei in a bid to avoid an aggressive response from Beijing. McCarthy, a California Republican who became Speaker in January, had said last summer that he intended to visit Taiwan if elected to the leadership