Announcement by UK finance minister, Rishi Sunak

  • One-off top up grants for retail, hospitality, businesses up to £9,000 per property
  • A £594 million discretionary fund set up to support other impacted businesses
  • New lockdown grants to total £4.6 billion

This comes after Boris Johnson announced a national lockdown in the UK over the next seven weeks starting from today, which will be reviewed on 15 February next.

The pound is still feeling the heat from all the pessimism as of late, with cable seen down slightly to 1.3555-60 levels currently. Meanwhile, EUR/GBP is up to 0.9050 as buyers threaten a push above its 100-day moving average @ 0.9034.