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Sweeping new powers to ban financial products and publish details of pending investigations of institutions suspected of misconduct will be handed to the three bodies replacing the Financial Services Authority, the Treasury will announce today. In a series of reforms that could prove controversial in the City, Mark Hoban, Financial Secretary to the Treasury, is expected to confirm that the three regulators will lead an era of tighter regulation aimed at bringing greater stability to the financial system when they come into force towards the end of next year, reports the Times.Households should start preparing for interest rate rises, the Bank of England Governor, Mervyn King, said on Wednesday, as he warned that the "squeeze on living standards is going to happen one way or another". Mervyn King's comments came after the Bank published its February Inflation Report, in which it lowered its forecast for economic growth this year from 2.6pc to around 2pc and confirmed that inflation could reach 5pc before June - more than double its 2pc target for the consumer prices index (CPI), the Telegraph reports.Brent crude rose above $104 a barrel after Avigdor Lieberman, the Israeli foreign minister, said two Iranian warships planned to sail through the Suez canal en route to Syria. Mr Lieberman called the move the latest "provocation" by Iran, which Israel sees a major threat due to the OPEC nation's nuclear arms programme, according to the Telegraph.A string of positive economic data at the start of the year, boosted the Federal Reserve's optimism about the US economic recovery, with officials concluding that the economy was "on a firmer footing" and "would gradually strengthen over the coming quarters". Fed officials raised their forecast for 2011 GDP growth to between 3.4 and 3.9%, compared with November's projection of between 3.0 and 3.6%, according to the minutes of the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee's January meeting, according to the Times.Sales at Westfield London jumped 25% last year, helping its Australian owner to bounce back into the black. Westfield Group said that it had made a net profit of A$1.1b (£680m) for 2010, with sales of £870m at Westfield London in Shepherd's Bush contributing to its return to financial health, after losses of A$458m and A$2.2bn in 2009 and 2008, respectively, the Times reports.Solar power companies are considering a legal challenge to Government plans for a review of the "feed-in tariff" (FIT) scheme, set up last year to boost investment in green energy schemes. After months of uncertainty, the announcement by the Energy Secretary Chris Huhne last week of a fast-track review has created "pandemonium" in the industry, critics claim, leaving all but the smallest domestic projects "impossible to finance" and costing Britain's stuttering economy anything up to 18,000 new jobs. More than 50 solar companies will attend a second crisis meeting today to finalise a letter to Mr Huhne, spelling out the problems caused by the review, the Independent reports.Britain's high street banks faced an army of outlaws yesterday, as activists took to the streets calling for the introduction of a so-called "Robin Hood Tax". As part of a week of action for the campaign, which is backed by 250,000 supporters, people affected by the government cuts dressed as Robin Hood and protested outside branches of HSBC, Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland in London, according to the Independent. Prudential, one of the country's leading pension suppliers, has been taken to the high court by the trustees of its own employees' retirement fund. The move by Prudential Staff Pensions could potentially force the financial services firm into topping up the scheme and comes after the Pru changed its practices in 2005 to plug a £379m deficit in the 92-year-old pension plan, says the Guardian.Borders, the US bookstore chain, has proposed closing almost a third of its 640 stores after being forced to seek court protection from its creditors after years of declining sales. In its bankruptcy court filing, Borders said it believed it still had "a sizeable core of profitable stores" that could prosper in a business that faces fundamental disruption, the Financial Times reports.The British government is in for a small windfall after Iceland decided to pay back the £3.6bn lost by savers here and in the Netherlands in the Icesave crash.It brings to an end the long-running saga that has caused major political friction between the three countries, according to the Daily Mail