UniCredit and Commerzbank were on the cusp of merger talks this year before the Ukraine war scotched a deal that could have kickstarted European banking’s long-awaited cross-border consolidation wave.  Three people with direct knowledge of the matter told the Financial Times that in early 2022 UniCredit’s chief executive Andrea Orcel planned informal discussions about a

One thing to start: JPMorgan Chase shareholders have voted against the bank’s executive pay plan, delivering a stinging rebuke to chief executive Jamie Dimon and his management team. Deutsche Bank enlists an unexpected dealmaker after a decade of chaos For a lender that has spent the last 10 years battling scandals and shrinking assets, Deutsche

For many of the most seasoned professionals in the bond market, it feels like the end of an era. After a boom that has lasted at least three decades, the warning signs are everywhere. The highest levels of inflation in a generation and rising interest rates mean that yields are increasing, so bond investors can

US Treasury secretary Janet Yellen is stepping up talks with EU and G7 allies on a potential price cap or tariff on Russian oil, as Brussels struggles to reach a consensus among its member states on a full import ban. Yellen raised the Biden administration’s ideas during a visit to the European bloc’s leaders this

The cognitive impairment caused by severe Covid-19 is comparable with the decline that takes place between the ages of 50 and 70, according to a recent study by Cambridge university and Imperial College London. Researchers said the degeneration was equivalent to losing 10 IQ points. The findings, published earlier this month, were the latest in

China’s top economic official met dozens of executives and industry experts on Tuesday, pledging “support” for technology companies amid a deepening economic slump. Liu He, a vice-premier and President Xi Jinping’s closest economic adviser, said China “must support the platform economy, and sustain the healthy development of the private economy”. He added that China should

China’s cash-strapped local governments have been forced to divert funds from poverty alleviation and infrastructure to finance mass coronavirus testing as President Xi Jinping’s zero-Covid policy causes growing financial strains. An official in the north-eastern city of Jilin said authorities had earmarked a “significant” portion of state-backed funds intended to reduce poverty to buy PCR

Nathalie Thomas’s article (Report, May 9) highlights how UK households, to cover energy bills, are increasingly relying on credit cards, payday loans and “buy now pay later” financing schemes to make ends meet while they wait to get paid at the end of the month. Monthly payroll became popular for many reasons — greater predictability

The grace period for Sri Lanka to avoid defaulting on its foreign debt expired on Wednesday, as the government scrambled for dollars to top up depleted fuel supplies. There was no immediate confirmation of whether Sri Lanka had made previously missed payments due on two bonds. Asked in parliament about the deadline, Prime Minister Ranil

Walmart shares suffered the biggest one-day drop since the eve of the Black Monday stock market crash after the company cut its earnings guidance following a quarter in which it was wrongfooted by the rapid pace of inflation in the US. The share price reaction, a particularly severe one by the standards of typically less

US president Joe Biden denounced white supremacy as a “poison” running through American politics after blaming a “hateful and perverse ideology” for the deadly racially motivated mass shooting at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York. Biden arrived in the city on Tuesday morning for a hastily arranged visit to meet a predominantly black community in

Jay Powell said the Federal Reserve will continue tightening monetary policy until it sees “clear and convincing” evidence that inflation is coming back down towards the US central bank’s longstanding 2 per cent target. The Fed chair on Tuesday sought to affirm the central bank’s commitment to taming price pressures, saying restoring price stability was

Rishi Sunak has stepped up his warnings to Britain’s oil and gas industry that unless companies announce increased investment plans for the UK “soon” they face a potential windfall tax on their profits. The UK chancellor is under pressure from his political opponents — and some prominent members of his own Conservative party — to

UK government officials are demanding a “legally watertight” guarantee that Roman Abramovich will not lay claim to a roughly £1.5bn chunk of the proceeds from the sale of Chelsea Football Club, funds that have become a key source of tension that could scupper the planned deal. The club borrowed the sum from a Jersey entity

Not many central bankers get to be remembered as being truly great. You rarely see statues paying tribute to deft monetary policy. If the world rapidly manages to escape its current high-inflation, low-growth rut, the leaders of central banks in the UK, US and EU will certainly have earned some recognition. For now, that seems

KPMG has ditched struggling German real estate giant Adler as an audit client less than an hour after the company told investors it was in “very professional discussions” with the Big Four firm and wanted to keep it as its auditor. In late February, KPMG refused to sign off Adler’s 2021 financial report, saying it had

If BP is a cash machine, as it has claimed, Saudi Aramco is a high-capacity printer of banknotes. First-quarter net income rose 82 per cent to $39.5bn from a year earlier, the group said on Sunday. Rampant energy prices mean the business is the world’s most valuable company as well as its biggest oil producer.

This article is part of the Financial Times free schools access programme. Details/registration here. Social media video platforms should step up safeguards for their teenage users, enforce age limits and increase monitoring against harmful content to make them kinder, safer places for young people, students say. Ellie Hattam, one of the winners of a joint competition

In his general election campaign of 2019, Boris Johnson promised the country that he would “get Brexit done”. He has failed. Once again he is planning a law to allow him to repudiate parts of the UK’s Brexit deal on Northern Ireland, on which he campaigned. This would destroy the UK’s reputation for keeping its

Elon Musk displays an almost anarchic disregard for the rigid rules and regulations that bind other business leaders of his stature. The Tesla boss, who has clashed with regulators before, has come under scrutiny for recent tweets about his proposed acquisition of Twitter. These had the effect of moving the markets to his advantage by