Just 6% of advisers believe the current regulatory environment is having a positive impact on their ability to offer advice, according to a survey of more than 500 intermediaries.

HSBC is preparing its first sale of sub-prime loans since the height of the financial crash, as Britain's largest bank begins to off-load more than $40bn (£25bn) of toxic US debt it still holds on its books.

Up to two million people are to have their credit files secretly checked under a crackdown on tax evasion to be unveiled by George Osborne to help raise another £10 billion.

The main distributor of the suspended Axiom Legal Financing fund is urging investors to sack the fund's directors with immediate effect.

The Financial Services Authority's (FSA) plan to raise the amount of capital self-invested personal pension (SIPP) providers have to hold will spur further consolidation in the market, the chairman of Mattioli Woods has said.

IFAs will need to find an extra £28m to cover the cost of further levies for the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS).

Fraudsters pretending to be from the Scottish Public Pension Authority (SPPA) have targeted the organisation's members in a bid to extract financial information.

Britain's banks face a financial black hole of up to £60bn from regulatory demands, hidden losses, and potential mis-selling costs that threaten to jeopardise future growth, the Bank of England has warned.

RECRUITMENT

Financial planning firm Henwood Court has written an open letter to Chancellor George Osborne calling on him to abandon auto-enrolment for firms with fewer than 50 employees.