Wednesday newspaper round-up: Carney, Barclays, RBS

The Bank of England governor, Mark Carney, has fallen victim to an online prankster who got him to joke about one of his predecessor’s supposed drinking habits. Carney was caught out by the same hoaxer who tricked the Barclays boss, Jes Staley, this month. The prankster, who goes by the Twitter handle @SINON_REBORN, emailed Carney from a Hotmail account pretending to be Anthony Habgood, the chair of the Bank’s court. In the exchange, posted on Twitter, Carney appears initially to fall for the prank and tentatively accepts an invitation to a “soiree” in June. – Guardian

London’s thriving economy generates a £26.5bn surplus that is recycled by the government to provide financial help to Britain’s less well-off regions, according to an official breakdown of the public finances. The first attempt by the Office for National Statistics to break down the UK’s budget deficit by region has demonstrated the importance of the capital and highlighted how taxes and public spending are used to narrow the north-south divide. – Guardian

Barclays is being sued for £1.6bn in damages by a US credit card services firm which filed a High Court claim against the British bank for mis-selling a payment protection product at subprime credit card business Monument. CCUK Finance, which used to be known as CompuCredit, bought Monument and its portfolio from Barclays ten years ago. The £390m deal included an indemnity clause relating to customers' claims over mis-sold payment protection policies. – Telegraph

The UK is the world’s third largest global hub for innovation and development in the biosciences sector, new research has found. The UK BioIndustry Association (BIA) has said the country raised more venture capital than San Diego in 2016 and is primed to close the gap on San Francisco and Boston as the two leading centres for life sciences. – Telegraph

Royal Bank of Scotland’s eleventh-hour attempt to avoid a trial over its £12 billion rights issue appeared to have stalled last night after diehard shareholders refused to sign up to an out- of-court settlement. RBS has been urging a 9,000-strong group of investors suing the bank over the cash call to accept an 82p-a-share offer in two days of settlement talks after the start of the trial was adjourned on Monday. – The Times

America’s emergency oil reserve should be halved and the country’s largest wildlife sanctuary opened for drilling to raise billions of dollars to help cut the national debt, President Trump has proposed in his first budget. Draining half of the strategic petroleum reserve, which consists of about 688 million barrels of oil, would raise as much as $16.6 billion over the next decade, according to White House plans published yesterday. – The Times