According to The Telegraph, up to 17.5m RBS customers were left without their money on Wednesday night were unable to access their accounts or withdraw money after the bank's systems crashed. The bank issued on Twitter read: 'We are aware of the problems our customers are having and apologise, we will provide more information as soon as we have it.'

The head of the Bank of Japan (BoJ) has rejected calls for more aggressive easing in his final board meeting of his five-year term, writes the Financial Times. Despite proposals for further easing from two of his board members, Masaaki Shirakawa left the BoJ's asset purchase programme unchanged at a total of Y101tn by the end of this year, while keeping the key interest rate at almost zero. The decision was expected by analysts, "given the relatively radical moves of recent months", the paper said,.

Tech giant Microsoft has been hit by a €561m fine by the European Union's competition regulator after failing to give 15m customers a choice of web browser, says the Financial Times. The paper said that the hefty sanction is a "serious financial and repetitional setback" for the firm, after having already paid around €1.6bn in fines in Europe through its decade-long feud with Brussels.

Travel and leisure group Thomas Cook is to shed another 2,500 jobs as part of a three-year turnaround plan designed to save £140m, said The Times on Thursday morning. The paper said firm will close 195 travel agencies, accounting for 1,600 employees, and cut a further 900 jobs in administrative and managerial roles at head offices.

"We cant turn our economy round", Prime Minister David Cameron will say at a speech in West Yorkshire, according to The Guardian. Two weeks before the Budget, the paper said that Cameron will express "cautious optimism" that the country may be emerging from the economic crisis, though there is still a "long, hard road ahead", he will say.

Sir Mervyn King has said that the controversial European Union cap on bankers' bonuses is an unhelpful "distraction", reports The Independent. The Bank of England Governor told the Banking Standards Commission on Wednesday that the move by Brussels "will neither be as beneficial as proponents hope, nor will it be as damaging as opponents fear", according to the paper.

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