Taxpayer-backed Lloyds Banking Group is expected to face tough questions at its annual meeting tomorrow over a multi-million-pound pay deal for its new chief executive.

Supermarket Tesco is considering taking steps to allow its personal finance arm to borrow directly from wholesale markets as part of a push into retail banking, it emerged today.

British supermarket giant Tesco plans to open 30 bank branches in its stores in the UK by the end of this year as part of its continued push into financial services, it emerged today.

Banking group Lloyds TSB was today reported to be working on plans to buy Germany’s Dresdner Bank from insurance giant Allianz.

Two of the UK's biggest life insurers - Friends Provident and Resolution - today confirmed they were in talks over a possible £8.3bn (€12.35m) merger.

FRENCH insurance giant AXA is considering a £7 billion (€10.4 billion) bid for British insurer Standard Life, according to weekend reports.

A joint £8bn (€11.9bn) bid has been made for Scottish Widows, the life insurance arm of Lloyds TSB, it was reported today.

The Spanish company looking to land airports operator BAA was today told it must come up with a bid worth around £9.5bn (€13.9bn) for the Heathrow owner.

UK banking group Lloyds TSB today posted a 7% rise in half-year profits and said its retail division was continuing to attract new business.

Lloyds TSB today said it was on track to make further earnings progress in 2005 despite becoming the latest bank in the UK to report a slowdown in consumer borrowing.

The newly-appointed team at Marks & Spencer is preparing to begin work at the troubled high street giant today.

London's leading shares lost hold of yesterday's modest gains as the market fell on the back of a gloomy session on Wall Street.

LIFE assurer Standard Life has announced 200 job losses and a further cut to payouts on its long-term savings policies.

Lloyds TSB is to reduce the number of UK branch advisers who sell its financial products by a third, it was reported today.

Lloyds TSB said today it had produced a “satisfactory” underlying performance for 2002 despite suffering a 17% fall in pre-tax profits.

Banking giant Lloyds TSB showed it was suffering from a sharp rise in bad debt provisions today as “unprecedented” economic and stock market turmoil left first half profits only marginally above a year ago.

A new database has been launched in a bid to reunite investors with more than £3bn of unclaimed shares and dividends.

Some Scottish Widows policy-holders have been asked to hand back windfall payments made by mistake.