Lloyds deluged with 2,000 complaints every day - papers

Britain's biggest bank is receiving more than 2,000 complaints from angry customers every day, it admitted last night.

Lloyds TSB - which is 43% owned by the taxpayer after a multi-billion pound bailout to save it during the credit crunch - said it had received 300,000 complaints in the first six months of the year.

But just one in ten ended in an apology or compensation for the let-down customers - and an astonishing 90% were dismissed, writes the Daily Mail.

Lloyds received 300,000 complaints in the first six months of this year, of which 90% were rejected. Full story...

Gold demand soars on double-dip fears

World demand for gold shot up by more than a third in the second quarter as recession-spooked investors continued to look to the yellow metal as a safe haven.

As demand rose by 36% to 1,050 tonnes in volume, it shot up by 77% to a record quarterly high of $40.4bn (£26.1bn) in value terms, according to the latest report published by the World Gold Council (WGC) yesterday.

The biggest boost came from a 118% rise in investment demand, within which exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the developed world ballooned by 414% to account for 291 tonnes out of the 534-tonne total. The 235-tonne rise in ETFs is the strongest quarterly rally since the height of the financial crisis, writes the Independent. Full story...

Irish debt downgrade raises fears of international deflation spiral

The colossal expense of rescuing Ireland's troubled banking sector has hit the republic's international credit rating once again.

Despite an apparently successful austerity programme and drive to reduce government borrowing, Standard & Poor's yesterday cut its credit rating on Irish sovereign debt by one notch, from AA to AA-. It reflects renewed concerns about the cost to the public finances of supporting failed banks and building societies.

The news helped to push already unsettled international markets lower, as did disappointing news from the US real-estate sector, where new home sales dropped to an all-time low in July. Full story...