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HSBC, Britain's biggest bank, emphatically rejected suggestions yesterday that it was needlessly denying credit to small companies and claimed that most business customers were paying a lower rate of interest than before the credit crisis hit three years ago.Douglas Flint, its finance director, insisted the bank had not tightened lending criteria and that customers were in no mood to borrow: "We're not shying away from lending. Our customers are shying away from borrowing," the Times reports.Britain's mortgage lenders are continuing to apply the brakes to the housing market, with new data revealing that mortgages remain far harder to get than before the credit crisis. Moneyfacts, the personal finance analyst, said that while the number of new mortgages being offered has risen by two-thirds since the beginning of the year, they are only available to borrowers with large deposits, the Independent reports.Santander is poised to make two more bold acquisitions - in the UK and US - as the Spanish bank continues to scoop up the assets of troubled rivals. In the US, Santander has agreed a preliminary deal to buy $4.3bn of car loans from HSBC, part of the UK bank's wind-down of its troubled American consumer finance arm, according to people close to the transaction. Meanwhile, the bank is set to announce the acquisition of 318 branches from the Royal Bank of Scotland, mainly in north-west England, the FT reports.Wheat prices have seen the biggest one-month jump in more than three decades on the back of a severe drought in Russia, prompting warnings by the food industry of rising prices for flour-related products such as bread and biscuits. Food executives are also warning about surging prices for feeding and malting barley, which could push higher the retail cost of products from poultry to beer. European wheat prices jumped 8 per cent on Monday to €211 a tonne, the highest in two years. Wheat prices have risen nearly 50% since late June, the FT reports.A campaign of national strikes over cuts to spending, pay and pensions involving millions of public sector workers is being drawn up by trade union leaders for the autumn. The plan will begin with a national day of action on October 20, the same day as the spending review when George Osborne will disclose plans to cut £83bn off public spending, the Times reports.BP is removing thousands of yards of protective boom and preparing to lay off clean-up workers despite evidence that fresh waves of oil are blighting sensitive wetlands along the US coast of the Gulf of Mexico. The Times found miles of thickly coated marshlands on the day that BP and the US Coast Guard declared that their response to the oil spill had been so successful that they could start winding it down. Today, BP will begin the delicate process of permanently sealing the well a mile beneath the surface by pumping in mud and cement.The Federal Reserve is set to kick-start a new phase of monetary easing, a leading Wall Street economist claims. Paul Sheard, Nomura's chief global economist, argues that the current conditions are ripe for the American central bank to take affirmative action to put the US recovery back on track. In the first call of its kind from a Wall Street economist, Mr Sheard says that given subdued growth and concern about inflation, the Federal Open Markets Committee will act when it meets a week today, the Telegraph reports.Virgin Media has called on Ofcom to investigate Project Canvas, a joint venture that is preparing to bring internet television into living rooms next spring, saying it will "significantly and irreparably harm competition".Virgin yesterday submitted an official complaint to the media watchdog over the joint venture developed by the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Talk Talk and broadcast transmission group Arqiva. It fears that Canvas could create a monopoly in the UK's internet television market, the Independent reports.HgCapital, the UK-based private equity group, is on Tuesday expected to announce the acquisition of TeamSystem, the Italian accounting software maker, from Bain Capital in a deal worth about €565m (£468m, $741.3m). The deal would underline how a growing trend for private equity groups to sell their best-performing assets to each other has fuelled a rally in buy-out activity this year, the FT reports.