Britons' fears raise double-dip recession chance - papers

The prospect of a double-dip recession in Britain is increasing with every month as consumer confidence dwindles to recession levels, a long-running study shows.

The July Consumer Confidence index from GfK NOP fell for a fifth month in July, by three points to -22, reports the Telegraph. It is the lowest reading since August 2009, when the British economy was still contracting.

It was also the first opportunity consumers had to respond to the austerity measures announced in the Government's emergency Budget in June which will bear down on households over the coming months and years.

Britain is facing an unsavoury combination of high inflation, high unemployment and potentially low growth for the remainder of 2010 and for much of 2011. Although the economy grew by 1.1% in the second quarter, economists are not ruling out a return to recession as economic indicators for the second half have weakened. Read more

BANKS are starving small firms of cash while lavishing generous rewards on their staff and shareholders, figures reveal today.

Despite billions of taxpayers' money spent on bailing out the banking industry, small businesses - the lifeblood of the economy - are still being squeezed by a chronic lack of loans and credit agreements, reports the Daily Mail.

Bank of England figures show that net lending to businesses was negative for ten of the last 12 months. Read more 

MORE than 2,800 people in the City took home more than £1m last year, the FSA has revealed as it prepared to stop City firms exploiting potential loopholes in its pay code.

Providing a rare insight into pay levels in the City, the regulator said it had found 170 people whose contracts breached new rules that require up to 60% of bonuses to be deferred over three years, reports the Guardian. The FSA said it had applied pressure to their employers to change the contracts.

The rules are designed to discourage excessive risk-taking and were introduced after the meltdown in the financial industry in the autumn of 2008. Read more

BANKING giant Citigroup has agreed to pay $75m (£48m) to settle civil charges that it misled investors over potential losses from high-risk mortgages.

It agreed the settlement with US financial watchdog the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), reports the BBC.

The SEC said Citigroup had repeatedly made misleading statements about the extent of its exposure to subprime loans as the housing market slumped.

Earlier this month, Goldman Sachs agreed also settled civil charges. Read more

HSBC is plunging headlong into Russian equities as it makes the world's biggest bet on the rising middle classes of Asia, Latin America, and the commodity bloc.

The bank is the top global investor in the BRIC quartet of Brazil, Russia, India, and China, with $90bn of assets in emerging markets, reports the Telegraph.

It has raised the Russia weighting of its BRIC funds to over 30%. India has slipped to 20%. Read more

ROYAL DUTCH SHELL mounted a spirited defence of deep-water drilling yesterday as it unveiled a 94% surge in profits in its second quarter, reports the Independent.

The oil giant's chief executive Peter Voser stressed the oil industry's "shock" at the explosion at BP's Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico that killed 11 people, unleashed the worst oil spill in US history and claimed the scalp of BP chief executive Tony Hayward this week.

Shell's expectation-beating $4.53bn (£2.9bn) profits for the three months to June were helped by the company's $3.5bn underlying annualised savings and a 5% rise in oil and gas production, said Mr Voser. Read more