Friday Papers: Groups join forces to ease credit woes - money news

Financial Times

* Business bodies and accountants have for the first time joined forces with credit rating agencies and the banking industry in an effort to break the long-standing problem of access to credit; the initiative, called Doing Business Together, has outlined a set of operating principles for both lenders and those in need of credit.

* Directors of FTSE 100 companies saw their earnings soar an average of 55% during the past year, prompting fresh calls from politicians for executive pay restraint; the average FTSE 100 chief executive took home £4.9 million in total earnings in the year to June, Incomes Data Services said.

* High-earning men whose partners or wives fail to tell them they are claiming child benefit will be liable for heavy fines, according to Treasury plans.

*  Mouchel has scrapped its final dividend after full-year losses widened, pushing shares in the outsourcing and consulting group down 30%.

* A group of senators led by Carl Levin, the Democrat from Michigan, is pushing a new financial oversight council to adopt a strict ban on proprietary trading at banks.

* Mario Draghi, Bank of Italy governor, has said the country’s banks must be prepared to significantly shore up their capital base under new Basel III rules.

* Piraeus Bank, Greece’s fourth-largest lender, is set to seek shareholder permission to raise about €800 million through a rights issue.

* Deutsche Börse said it was increasingly likely to face a further writedown on its ownership of the International Securities Exchange, the US options exchange that was the German group’s biggest acquisition in a $2.8 billion deal in 2007.

The Times

* About 300,000 fewer people are building up pension benefits in workplace retirement schemes, according to new figures released yesterday.

* Allied Irish Bank has drafted in David Hodgkinson, who was chief operating officer of HSBC Holdings until his retirement in 2006, as interim chairman.