UK banks have pulled billions of pounds of funding from the eurozone as fears grow about the impact of a “Lehman-style” event connected to a Greek default.

Senior sources have revealed that leading banks, including Barclays and Standard Chartered, have radically reduced the amount of unsecured lending they are prepared to make available to eurozone banks, raising the prospect of a new credit crunch for the European banking system.Standard Chartered is understood to have withdrawn tens of billions of pounds from the eurozone inter-bank lending market in recent months and cut its overall exposure by two-thirds in the past few weeks as it has become increasingly worried about the finances of other European...

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Spain’s energy regulator proposed that power companies not receive the full value of 7 billion euros ($10 billion) of power-tariff debt they plan to sell to a government-backed investment vehicle.

Spain’s energy regulator proposed that power companies not receive the full value of 7 billion euros ($10 billion) of power-tariff debt they plan to sell to a government-backed investment vehicle.The proceeds should be reduced to achieve an “equilibrium” between the government, consumers and the companies, which all bear the burden of financing the power-rate deficit, the Comision Nacional de Energia said in a report on its website.“This Commission considers there should be an adjustment in the price that companies receive,” the report dated April...

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Bank of England uses Google for research

The Bank of England has said it is using Google features to investigate unemployment, consumer spending and the housing market, reports the Guardian.Its latest Quarterly Bulletin provides three examples of where it has used search volume patterns sourced from Google's Insights for Search."Internet search data have the potential to be useful for economic policy making," they say. "As further developments are made in this area, and the backrun of the data increases, these data are likely to become an increasingly useful source of information about...

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Barclays PLC (BCS) Monday said it would reimburse all customers who complained about mis-sold payment protection insurance on or before April 20

Barclays PLC (BCS) Monday said it would reimburse all customers who complained about mis-sold payment protection insurance on or before April 20, as a gesture of goodwill for those whose claims had been put on hold pending the outcome of a legal case.A spokesman said those customers would get a full refund of the PPI premiums they had paid, as well as 8% compensatory interest.Barclays and its U.K. bank peers in May dropped a legal fight to delay or change the terms of PPI repayments, which are being made after the industry conceded that customers...

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The International Monetary Fund (IMF) says it has been targeted by a sophisticated cyber attack.

Officials at the fund gave few details but said the attack earlier this year had been "a very major breach" of its systems, the New York Times reports.Cyber security officials said the hack was designed to install software to create a "digital insider presence".The IMF, which holds sensitive economic data about many countries, said its operations were fully functional.The cyber attack took place over several months, and happened before former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn was arrested over sexual assault charges."I can confirm that we are investigating...

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