UK's Chelsea Building Society has plunged into a loss for the first half of 2009 after it was hit hard by an alleged mortgage fraud of £41million.

Buy-to-let loans have caused problems for Chelsea, which said the alleged fraud cases occurred between 2006 and 2008. 

Chelsea has blamed third-party professionals like mortgage brokers and surveyors. Chelsea holds them responsible for the artificial inflation of the property values, which is used as a base for providing loans.

The number of new cars produced in Britain was down 17.9 per cent in July as compared with a year earlier, but it was the smallest decline this year owing to the scrapping schemes.

According to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, 107,635 cars were manufactured in July 2009, up from 91,718 cars in June 2009.

The Federal Communications Commission said on Thursday that it would review the practices of the wireless industry and for the same; the commission has sought comments from the public over the Internet services being provided to the customers.

The FCC has issued a notice on www. fcc. gov, commission's website.

The FCC has been drafting a national broadband plan, which will be tabled before the Congress in February.

British cinema chain, Cineworld reported a 33 per cent increase in its profits for the first half of 2009 owing to blockbuster hit such as Slumdog Millionaire.

Pre-tax profits of the company stood at £11.6 million for the 27 weeks to July 2, 2009, up from £8.7 million for the corresponding period in the previous year.

Box office receipts were recorded at £111.4 million, up 24.3 per cent as compared with £86.9 million last year.

The supermarket chain Tesco said it will generate around 800 jobs in Glasgow by opening a new customer service centre for its Tesco Personal Finance division.

British govt. has been encouraging banks to boost lending in order to revive the economy.

Last summer, Tesco had purchased Royal Bank of Scotland's shares worth £950 million. Now, Tesco has plans to set up bank branches in its thirty stores.

Tesco's recent move has been supported by Chancellor Alistair Darling.

Alistair Darling is seeing a tough time ahead as figures compiled by the Office for National Statistics revealed that public sector net borrowing was £8 billion in July as compared with a repayment worth £5.2 billion for the same period a year earlier.

As the economic downturn has hit tax revenues, Chancellor Alistair Darling feared that net borrowing over the year as a whole would reach £175 billion.