Bloomberg Commonwealth Bank of Australia posted a 4.5 percent increase in quarterly profit and joined its main competitors in reporting higher charges for bad and doubtful debts. Unaudited cash profit, which excludes one-time items, for the three months ended on March 31 was A$2.3 billion ($1.7 billion) from A$2.2 billion reported a year earlier, the Sydney-based lender said in ...

  Bloomberg U.K. house prices fell in April after a surge of rental investors rushing to beat a tax change bolstered the market earlier in the year, according to Halifax. Average values dropped 0.8 percent from March, the mortgage lender said in a statement on Monday. That reduced the annual gain to 7.8 percent from about 11 percent. On a ...

  Reuters British finance minister George Osborne said that homeowners would face a “significant hit” from lower house prices and higher mortgage costs if voters decided to leave the European Union in a referendum in June. “This isn’t just a big question about who we are as a country. This goes to the heart of people’s financial security,” Osborne said ...