Around 54,000 customers at the Co-operative Bank are facing a rise in mortgage payments after the mutual became the latest provider to push up its cost of lending.

British pensioners have won their campaign to prevent the Irish government plundering savings held in high-yielding bonds.

Kesa Electricals has sold Comet to the private investment firm OpCapita for a nominal fee of just £2. But the parent company was forced to pump £50m into the loss-making UK electricals chain and retain its pension liabilities to get rid of Comet.

Kesa Electricals has sold Comet to the private investment firm OpCapita for a nominal fee of just £2. But the parent company was forced to pump £50m into the loss-making UK electricals chain and retain its pension liabilities to get rid of Comet.

The Greek bailout has increased, rather than decreased, the danger that Europe's debt crisis could spread to Spain and Italy, Moody's warned yesterday as it significantly cut Greece's credit rating and said a default appeared inevitable.

Bank of Ireland has escaped majority state ownership after a group of investors agreed to buy more than one billion euro (£880 million) in shares.

The company behind Londis and Budgens is to buy the troubled Irish grocer Superquinn out of receivership for an undisclosed sum, catapulting it above Tesco to become the biggest player in the Irish market. The purchase by Musgrave Group, which operates the SuperValu, Centra and Daybreak chains in Ireland, will secure the long-term future of Superquinn and 2,800 jobs at 24-store chain.

The Bank of Ireland (BoI) has cancelled plans that could have seen savers holding £75m in bonds issued by the old Bristol & West building society lose at least 80 per cent of the face value of their holdings.

This 73-year-old pensioner, Albert Kempster, will take the Bank of Ireland (BOI) to court on Wednesday to prevent his savings being plundered.