As inflation rockets and recession looms, many British businesses are struggling to secure affordable bank finance, piling pressure on the embattled UK government as it unveiled a budget aimed at reviving the economy.
Britain's banks are proactively helping customers hit by the cost of living crisis, but implementing a new "consumer duty" on time could exclude vulnerable consumers from help, banking industry body UK Finance said on Wednesday.
British inflation has jumped to a 41-year high on soaring energy and food bills in a worsening cost-of-living crisis, data showed Wednesday on the eve of a key budget.
British employers are planning the biggest pay hikes in a decade to fill roles but real-term wages will still grow more slowly than inflation, a survey showed on Monday.
Greek workers went on a day-long strike on Wednesday, demanding higher wages to cope with surging inflation, as Europe's soaring energy prices and living costs trigger industrial action and protests across the continent.
British grocery inflation hit 14.7% in October, another new record, and it is still too early to call the ceiling, market researcher Kantar said on Tuesday.
British businesses fear a gloomy Christmas ahead, as almost half of households plan to cut festive spending due to the soaring cost of living and sales are already falling sharply in inflation-adjusted terms.
Thousands of Spaniards packed Madrid's landmark Plaza Mayor square on Thursday to demand higher pay in the first mass protest since the start of the cost of living crisis.
The move would mirror aggressive rate-tightening by central banks worldwide as economies battle the highest prices in decades.
Mondelez International Inc raised its full-year results forecasts on Tuesday and rolled out more price hikes as people continued to snack on the Oreo maker's chocolates and biscuits even as the treats got more expensive.
The cost of fresh food in British shops last month was 13.3% higher than a year earlier, the biggest annual increase in records going back to 2005, the British Retail Consortium said on Wednesday.
Japan's factory output fell in September for the first time in four months as manufacturers took a hit from rising costs for raw materials and the global economic slowdown.
Fresh vegetables and fish are falling off the menu. Packaged pizzas and processed meat are the dishes of the day.
The global economy is approaching a recession as economists polled by Reuters once again cut growth forecasts for key economies while central banks keep raising interest rates to bring down persistently-high inflation.
Bank of England Deputy Governor Ben Broadbent told investors on Thursday that the big increases in interest rates they had priced in on the back of Prime Minister Liz Truss's fiscal plans would deliver a "pretty material" hit to the economy.
The European Central Bank is set to warn of the adverse impact on Spanish banks' solvency of a proposed tax on the sector and of a higher cost of credit in an upcoming non-binding opinion, two sources with direct knowledge of the matter said.
For Biden there are serious domestic concerns, with gasoline prices at one point averaging more than $5 a gallon, causing nationwide anger.
European Union leaders will lock horns on Friday over whether and how to cap gas prices, as they attempt to curb a surge in energy prices that threatens to push the 27-nation bloc into recession and disrupt the EU's cherished single market.
British companies are the most downbeat about the outlook for their profits since the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic in late 2020 despite widespread plans to raise prices, a major survey showed on Thursday, adding to signs of gloom about the economy.
Dreamt up in the 1960s to attract tourists, Spain's three-course "menu del dia", or set lunch menu, has long been seen as the best deal in town.
Tesco, Britain's biggest retailer, forecast full-year profit at the lower end of its previous guidance, blaming uncertainty over how consumer spending will evolve amid a worsening cost-of-living squeeze.
New research by the International Monetary Fund shows that sustained wage-price spirals are historically rare, and recent sharp interest rate hikes by central banks are likely to help prevent high inflation expectations from becoming entrenched.
