The Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England voted for retaining interest rate at its record low of 0.5 per cent and advised to maintain its quantitative easing spending at £175 billion to boost the money supply.

Quantitative easing program is expected to take another two months for completion.

Though there are apparent signs of economic revival, yet the Bank of England wants to remain cautious as any rise in interest rate might kill hopes of recovery.

The Bank of England has been advised by the monetary policy committee to penalize high street banks by paying them low interest on the cash held by these lenders in its reserve accounts.

The Bank of England governor Mervyn King said previous month that banks should be encouraged to pump more money into the financial-system.

According to a number of economists cash held by banks in the Bank of England is socially useless so the central bank should impose a negative interest on the piled up cash.

Barclays, UK’s second-largest lender, has been slapped with a fine of £2.45 million by the Britain’s financial watchdog for failing to provide details of trade transactions properly.

Financial Services Authority has blamed Barclays for not submitting transaction reports for about 57.5 million transactions.

FSA said serious breaches came to light when it was investigating suspected market abuse by a third parry. FSA also discovered errors in the data submitted. 

The latest media reports say that, in order to keep interest rates low to give the region's economy some `breathing space', business leaders in Greater Manchester are calling on the Chancellor.

It is almost sure that the Bank of England will keep the base rate at 0.5 per cent on Thursday.

Royal Bank of Scotland, which is majority-owned by the taxpayer, has said that it would reduce its future overdraft charges on its 12.5 million current accounts from subsequent month.

It should be noted here that RSB has been severely criticized by a consumer group for charging roughly eight times higher as compared to its rivals. The decision will affect customers of NatWest, the subsidiary of RBS.

Royal Bank of Scotland is very near to hit a deal worth £200 million to sell off its Asian assets. As per a confirmed report, Royal Bank of Scotland has been considering to sell off its assets in India, China and Malaysia to Standard Chartered.

Bank of America Corp., United States largest bank by assets is changing signs at two offices in New York and London to add the reflect the Merrill Lynch name.

North Carolina-based bank informed its staff, saying the One Bryant Park in Manhattan will get a new sign board mentioning "Bank of America Merrill Lynch", while London's Merrill Lynch Financial Centre will be renamed as "The Bank of America Merrill Lynch Financial Centre."

Bank of America had acquired Merrill Lynch in January amid the dramatic shakeup in the financial sector.

Royal Bank of Scotland, the largest bank bailed out by the UK, has been barred by the City regulator from redeeming about £1 billion of debt for the fears that it could endanger bank's restructuring.

Financial Services Authority ordered RBS not to redeem bond issues after the EU stated that banks should not use government money to reimburse equity plus subordinated debt.

Group of 20 ministers have agreed to curb huge bank bonuses, which were held responsible for bringing in recent economic downturn but failed to impose a cap on the huge bonuses in future after the US and Britain put objections to the concerned proposals.

However the G20 approved a "clawback" plan, which ensures that bonuses should be linked to the long term success of deals and could be taken back in case they fail to deliver the desired results.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has promised a 'tough action' against massive bonuses for bankers, which as per economists played a vital role in pushing the economy into recession.

The problem of massive bonuses, which encourage excessive risk-taking, has become a key issue to be discussed at this month's meeting of members of G20. Speaking on the France's proposal for a mandatory cap on bonuses, Gordon Brown said, "I think that is very difficult in an international environment. But there may be ways... that we could do better."

Iceland's parliament has passed the "Icesave" bill, approving a £3.4 billion repayment plan to compensate Britain and the Netherlands for money lost after the collapse of an Icelandic internet bank previous year.

Iceland will start reimbursing £2.3 billion to Britain and £1.1billion to the Netherlands from 2016, with payments stretch over following 9 years.
 
The Icelandic government had to face heavy opposition to approve the concerned plan.

Lord Turner, the chairman of the Financial Services Authority, has come up with an idea of imposing multi-billion pound taxes on the so-called "socially useless" banks to curb the problem of unjustifiable bonuses.

Head of UK's financial watchdog, Lord Turner said that the financial sector had swollen and he would back any idea of imposing such taxes.

Lloyds Banking Group, the part-nationalized lender is going to axe another 200 jobs, bringing total losses at the bank to 7500 this year.

The proposed cuts will hit bank's general insurance arm's offices in South Wales, Newport and West Yorkshire.

The Unite union leaders accused the lender of possessing a "confused" management, following last week's decision to review the planned shutting of its Cheltenham & Gloucester branches. However, Lloyds did not cite any reason for the review.

Royal Bank of Scotland has plans to scale back its pension benefits to more than 60,000 workers, the move that is expected to save more than £100 million per year.

Royal Bank of Scotland, which is 70 per cent possessed by the taxpayers, said that it would cap any future increases in pensionable pay to 2 per cent per year or the rate of inflation - whichever is lower. 

The Unite union has severely criticized bank’s recent move, reminding the huge pension given to the disgraced former CEO Fred Goodwin.

A London cash machine operator has introduced Cockney rhyming slang to a number of its cash machines.

People using the bank machine ATMs will be able to opt to have their prompts and options given to them in a more authentic dialect.

As a result of the introduction of Cockney rhyming slang, users will be asked to enter their "Huckleberry Finn", rather than their pin. The machine will further ask its users to select how much "Sausage and Mash" they want.