Your commercial news round-up: Autumn Budget, HSBC, AI in financial services, Anthropic

Bethany Wren (she/her) is head of content and events at LawCareers.Net.

Reading time: three minutes

The business news this week has been dominated by yesterday’s Autumn Budget, which included a range of new tax and spending measures to help ease the cost-of-living crisis while boosting economic growth. Meanwhile, HSBC has reported a 32% rise in pre-tax profits while AI enters the news once again. Read on for LawCareers.Net’s pick of this week’s top commercial stories.

• Chancellor John Healey has announced a package of tax and spending measures in the government’s first Budget under Prime Minister Andy Burnham. The Budget includes measures aimed at easing household costs and boosting economic growth, including a one-off £100 payment for millions of households, changes to energy bills and an extension of the fuel duty freeze. The government will increase taxes in some areas, with an extra 2% tax on savings and property rental income from April and a temporary doubling of the bank profits surcharge from 3% to 6% from January. Businesses will see changes including increased business rates relief for smaller High Street properties, discounted electricity bills for 10,000 energy-intensive firms and new VAT responsibilities for online marketplaces such as Amazon and eBay. The Budget also introduces additional support for first-time buyers, increases the state pension and minimum wage, and commits further funding to affordable housing and regional investment. Wider spending commitments include more than £600 million for AI-related projects, an additional £10 billion in support for Ukraine and increased defence spending.
   
• Earlier in the week, HSBC reported a 32% rise in pre-tax profits to £7.14 billion for the three months to September 2026, helped by higher interest income and lower-than-expected credit losses. The bank also announced a $1 billion share buyback, reflecting its strong financial position. Higher interest rates have boosted banking profits, although they’ve also increased borrowing and mortgage costs for consumers.
   
• The Bank of England and Financial Conduct Authority found that 86% of surveyed UK financial firms now use AI, up from 75% in 2024, with generative AI accounting for 56% of reported AI systems. AI agents are also becoming widespread, with 80% of respondents already deploying them, although most are used to support rather than replace human decision-making. The firms surveyed saw significant potential for improved productivity and efficiency, but identified data protection, cybersecurity, generative AI errors and reliance on third-party technology providers as major risks. As adoption grows, governance is becoming increasingly important, with 94% of respondents reporting firm-wide AI policies, principles or standards.
   
• Finally, Anthropic has warned that advanced AI could pose “catastrophic or existential risks to humanity” as it prepares for a potentially record-breaking US stock market listing. The developer of the AI chatbot Claude reported $16.3 billion (£12.2 billion) in revenue in the first half of the year, alongside losses exceeding $80.7 billion, highlighting the enormous costs involved in developing cutting-edge AI. Its regulatory filing identifies risks including cybersecurity threats, reliance on cloud providers and chipmakers, potential legal liability and the misuse of increasingly autonomous AI systems. Despite these concerns, Anthropic argues that AI could deliver major economic and societal benefits, including higher productivity and advances in medicine, making its planned initial public offering an important test of investor confidence in the rapidly expanding AI industry.

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