Lloyds Share News (LLOY)

George Osborne was accused by a senior Liberal Democrat of letting bankers off the hook after the banks bought themselves an easy ride on bonuses by promising to lend more to small businesses. Lord Oakeshott was dismissed as his party's Treasury spokesman in the Lords within hours of castigating a landmark deal between the Government and the big four banks, says the Times.The head of state-owned Royal Bank of Scotland Stephen Hester has been awarded a £2.04 million bonus for 2010, although the 83% taxpayer-owned bank did make a small conscession to austerity, adding that Mr Hester will not receive a pay rise in 2011. Lloyds Banking Group, which is 41 per cent owned by the taxpayer, confirmed outgoing boss Eric Daniels will be offered a £1.45 million bonus, which is 62% of what he could have received, the Daily Mail reports.Two former Bank of England policymakers have said they would vote for an increase in interest rates on Thursday to convince the market that the central bank is not going soft on inflation. DeAnne Julius and Tim Besley said they would support a rate rise were they still on the nine-member Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), so long as the majority verdict was to leave rates unchanged at 0.5%, the Telegraph reports.London's standing as a financial centre was dealt a blow last night when NYSE Euronext and Deutsche Börse announced plans to merge their stock exchanges, creating a global trading powerhouse. The deal overshadowed the earlier announcement of a tie-up between the London Stock Exchange and Canada's TMX, the Times reports.The chief executive of Supergroup yesterday dismissed concerns about "an over-saturation" of its trendy Superdry brand and insisted it still had plenty of growth to shoot for, as its shares hit another high. Supergroup unveiled a 86.9 per cent jump in total sales to £81.7m for its third quarter to 30 January, boosted by strong underlying revenues and new store openings according to the Independent.Small companies are to be offered state-guaranteed loans to help them export more, the Government has announced. The scheme is based on the existing £700m domestic enterprise finance guarantee, which is open to companies with sales of up to £25m. The so-called export finance guarantee scheme is part of a package of measures designed by the Government to tackle "market failures" in the provision of finance support to exporters, according to the Telegraph.Apple and Research in Motion, maker of the BlackBerry, entered the ranks of the world's top five mobile handset makers by sales last year, underlining how demand for high-end smartphones is fuelling growth in the handset market. Gartner, the US research group, released data on Wednesday showing sales of mobile devices jumped 31.8 per cent to 1.6bn units in 2010, the Financial Times reports. Williams, the Formula One racing team, is offering more than a quarter of the company to outside investors in a flotation that values the team at about €265m (£226m). The Oxfordshire-based outfit, founded by engineers Sir Frank Williams and Patrick Head in 1977, announced a price range of €24 to €29 a share for the 27.4 per cent of the business being floated. No new money is being raised, reports the Financial Times.A damning report on the International Monetary Fund's failings in the run-up to the global financial crisis has blamed "groupthink" and "intellectual capture" for the inability of the Washington-based organisation to spot Britain's looming banking crash. In a 50-page assessment peppered with harsh criticism, the IMF's independent evaluation office (IEO) said few clear warnings had been provided about the risks and vulnerabilities of the global financial system in the years from 2004 to 2007, the Guardian reports.The US fears that Saudi Arabia, the world's largest crude oil exporter, may not have enough reserves to prevent oil prices escalating, confidential cables from its embassy in Riyadh show. The cables, released by WikiLeaks, urge Washington to take seriously a warning from a senior Saudi government oil executive that the kingdom's crude oil reserves may have been overstated by as much as 300bn barrels - nearly 40%, reports the Guardian.