Mortgage approvals hit their highest level since the start of the year in April, as buyers' confidence about the housing market rose.

Economic Life: Spain has tired of austerity before it has taken hold - its first riots were a year ago

As if they weren't already well-connected enough, the world's two greatest dynasties joined forces yesterday as Europe's Rothschild banking clan bought a stake in the Rockefeller group's wealth and asset management business to gain a foothold in the US.

Spain now has its own version of Fred "The Shred" Goodwin after it emerged that Aurelio Izquierdo, the former finance director at the financially crippled Bankia, is due to receive a €14m (£11m) payout despite the bank asking for a €19bn state bailout.

Relief for Madrid as fears over banks see country's borrowing costs at their highest since it joined euro

Royal Bank of Scotland saw its pay report overwhelmingly backed today as the taxpayer-backed bank reassured its investors it wanted to become “a bank that is built to last”.

At last year’s Occupy Wall Street demonstrations in New York a superhero made his debut. He was a bearded figure called “Krug man”, who set about vanquishing the minions of the evil financial services empire with his fearsome “macro mallet”. The unlikely cartoon champion was based on Paul Krugman, the Nobel Prize winning economist.

Justice Secretary Ken Clarke was forced to move his bank account after he discovered journalists were trying to access personal information, he said today.

The prospect of a multibillion-euro bailout for Spain increased today as the country's borrowing costs edged up on fears over its beleaguered banking sector.

The Scottish Premier League have backed off from imposing a fixed penalty on Rangers if the Ibrox club remain in the SPL as a newco.

Credit card lending has contracted by the biggest monthly amount since 2006 amid consumers' determination to pay down their debts, Bank of England figures showed today.

Such is the herd mentality among investors that it needs only the merest hint of trouble and they are falling over each other in a rush to so-called "safe havens". It really is like so many sheep clustered together at the corner of a field. Russia? Sub-Saharan Africa? Pfah. You can keep your gaudy yields and your fancy returns on capital. Even some more developed "emerging" markets – parts of Asia for example – can expect short shrift. It's German Bunds and US Treasuries for us. Right on cue the former hit a record low yield yesterday morning. Baaaaa!

The average family now owes nearly £10,000, as hard-pressed Britons go deep into debt to survive the recession, a report warns.

A quarter of families are cutting back on food costs by not ordering a regular take-away, or by buying basic ranges in the supermarket, according to the Aviva report. However, they are still buying takeaway coffee.