The Bank of England won’t include UK units of banks located outside the EU in its 2015 stress test and is unlikely to do so next year, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.

Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc and Lloyds Banking Group Plc, Britain’s two publicly owned lenders, barely passed the Bank of England’s first stress test, while Co-Operative Bank Plc failed.

Ulster Bank is set to close up to 20 branches in the Republic and in the North during the year.

Lloyds Banking Group Plc, Britain’s biggest mortgage lender, said its Irish loan impairment charge was cut by half to £897m (€1.115bn) in the first six months compared with a year earlier as the pace of increase of home-loan arrears slowed.

Two Halifax companies that are part of the Lloyds banking group have brought petitions for transfer of their life and non-life insurance businesses to two London-based based companies within the Lloyds Banking Group.

THE owner of Battersea Power Station, the London landmark slated for a £5.5 billion (€6.5bn) redevelopment, was put into administration by a judge in Britain after it failed to repay senior creditors.

BATTERSEA Power Station’s next owner may have to commit £700 million (€814.8m) to the derelict London development site before any construction work can be started.

CREDITORS of the Irish- owned Battersea PowerStation asked a court to put the landmark property’s owner into administration the day after Britain’schancellor of the exchequer George Osborne backed a London Undergroundextension to boost the area’s development.

A SHANNON-BASED workforce that was cut by 80 earlier this year contributed to a life assurance company recording pre-tax profits of £29.4 million (€32.5 million) last year.

London: Lloyds Banking Group Plc, Britain’s biggest mortgage lender, set aside £3.2 billion (€3.6bn) to settle claims that clients were improperly sold loan insurance, breaking ranks with British competitors.

IRELAND’S decision last October to guarantee all deposits and borrowings at six Irish banks to prevent a run on the banks rattled governments across Europe, according to a BBC documentary screened last night.