House prices in the UK fell for the seventh month in a row in March and by more than economists had expected. According to Nationwide, prices retreated another 0.8 per cent over the past month, taking the average value of a home in the UK down to £257,122. That is 3.1 per cent lower than a year ago, taking prices back to roughly where they were in January 2022. Economists had been predicting prices to fall by 0.3 per cent month-on-month and by 2.2 per cent compared to last year. The year-on-year decline is the most prominent Nationwide had reported since July 2009, when the financial crisis was nearing its end. House prices in the UK are now 4.6 per cent below their peak last August. Pantheon expects prices will not stabilise until they fall 8 per cent below last year’s high. Despite the slowdown in the market, it still pales compared to what happened during the financial crisis. House prices fell for 16 consecutive months between November 2007 and February 2009, when the annual ...

  Revolut has frus­trated its own board and raised eye­brows in the account­ing industry after por­tray­ing a crit­ical audit report as a clean bill of health. The fintech com­pany issued a pub­lic state­ment and hired law­yers this month to insist that an opin­ion by aud­it­ors BDO «con­firmed that ‘the fin­an­cial state­ments give a true and fair view’» of the com­pany’s affairs. In fact, BDO had warned that rev­en­ues «may be mater­i­ally mis­stated» and said the over­due 2021 accounts gave a true and fair view «except for the pos­sible effects of the mat­ters described in the ‘basis for qual­i­fied opin­ion’ sec­tion of our report». This sec­tion noted short­com­ings in Revolut’s IT con­trols and said BDO had been unable to sat­isfy itself of the «com­plete­ness and occur­rence» of rev­en­ues within three busi­ness divi­sions totalling £477mn, 75 per cent of the group’s total repor­ted rev­en­ues for 2021. Revolut’s state­ment also cri­ti­cised «mis­re­port­ing» of the audit op...

 Infla­tion fell rap­idly in two of Europe’s largest eco­nom­ies in March after a sharp drop in energy costs des­pite rises in the price of other goods and ser­vices. Ger­man con­sumer prices rose 7.8 per cent year-on-year on a har­mon­ised basis, down from the pre­vi­ous month’s rate of 9.3 per cent but higher than the 7.5 per cent fore­cast by eco­nom­ists polled by Reu­ters. The fig­ures came hours after Spain’s annual infla­tion rate almost halved to 3.1 per cent for March, from 6 per cent the pre­vi­ous month. Euro area gov­ern­ment bonds sold off after the coun­try’s infla­tion fig­ures were pub­lished. Yields on Ger­man two-year debt rose 0.13 per­cent­age points to 2.8 per cent as investors bet that bor­row­ing costs in the euro­zone would rise fur­ther. The ECB has raised interest rates swiftly in response to a surge in infla­tion over the past year, rais­ing its bench­mark deposit rate from minus 0.5 per cent the last sum­mer to 3 per cent. However, some mem­bers of the g...

  The UK today unveiled an agree­ment to join an 11-mem­ber Asia-Pacific trade bloc, with Prime Min­is­ter Rishi Sunak claim­ing it proved his gov­ern­ment was seiz­ing "post-Brexit freedoms". Talks on Bri­tain becom­ing a mem­ber of the Com­pre­hens­ive and Pro­gress­ive Agree­ment for Trans-Pacific Part­ner­ship were finally wrapped up after two years of hag­gling over quotas and tar­iffs. The UK will be the first coun­try to join the CPTPP since the group was estab­lished in 2018. Sunak said the trade deal would bring eco­nomic bene­fits and boost his "Asia-Pacific" tilt to for­eign policy. Sunak said: "We are at our heart an open and free-trad­ing nation, and this deal demon­strates the real eco­nomic bene­fits of our post-Brexit freedoms. Down­ing Street said more than 99 per cent of UK goods exports to CPTPP coun­tries would be eli­gible for zero tar­iffs, includ­ing products such as cheese, cars, chocol­ate, machinery, gin and whisky. But the eco­nomic g...

  Europe should reject Wash­ing­ton’s demands to curb trade with Beijing, a senior Chinese dip­lo­mat has warned, say­ing that any coun­try that shred­ded busi­ness ties with his nation would do so «at their peril». Fu Cong, China’s EU ambas­sador, said the US would «stop at noth­ing» to dis­rupt nor­mal ties between the bloc and China, adding that a «pro­tec­tion­ist tend­ency» was on the rise in Europe. «Who in their right mind would aban­don such a thriv­ing mar­ket as big as China?» Fu told the Fin­an­cial Times, warn­ing politi­cians not to under­mine pos­it­ive busi­ness sen­ti­ment towards China. «It will only be at their peril». «We do hope that the European gov­ern­ments and the European politi­cians can see where their interests lie and then res­ist the unwar­ran­ted pres­sure from the US,» Fu said. Refer­ring to the Neth­er­lands, he added: «They need to be mind­ful of the fact that China can­not just sit there and see its interests being trampled like this without tak­i...

  Bri­tain and the EU are boost­ing coordin­a­tion of efforts to tackle cli­mate change and respond to a vast US green sub­sidy pro­gramme, in a sign of warm­ing rela­tions between the two sides. Rishi Sunak, prime min­is­ter, said this week that Bri­tain and the EU could coordin­ate moves on a car­bon bor­der tax that would place a levy on impor­ted car­bon-intens­ive goods arriv­ing in Europe. The gov­ern­ment will today launch a con­sulta­tion on intro­du­cing a «car­bon bor­der adjust­ment mech­an­ism» as part of a broader net zero strategy. Grant Shapps, energy sec­ret­ary, said the con­sulta­tion would address the risk of future «car­bon leak­age», where busi­nesses move pro­duc­tion to a coun­try with weaker cli­mate reg­u­la­tions to avoid pay­ing a car­bon levy. Offi­cials said the aim was to work with like-minded coun­tries and that the UK and EU were giv­ing ser­i­ous con­sid­er­a­tion to link­ing their car­bon pri­cing sys­tems. «It makes sense,» said one. Mean­while, K...

EU draws up anti coercion trade tool   The EU has agreed to a new trade defence tool to retaliate against countries that use punitive measures, such as China's blocking Lithuanian imports over its relationship with Taiwan. The agreement among the European Parliament, Member States and European Commission was reached on Monday and is still subject to approval in the coming weeks. This instrument aims to deter third countries from targeting the EU and its Member States with economic coercion, and it will consider the impact on businesses. It can include increased customs duties, withdrawal of import or export licenses and restrictions in services and public procurement. The Commission is obliged to investigate any case of coercion, and if a qualified majority of Member States agree, the Commission can draw up a list of potential countermeasures. The EU has also proposed a ban on products made with forced labour. These measures demonstrate the strength of the Commission in defending E...