The UK rate of inflation has dropped back down to 0% in August, as oil prices continue to affect price growth in England. The rate has fallen from 0.1% in July, according to figures released today by the Office for National Statistics. Oil prices hit a six-and-a-half year low of around $42.50 per barrel in late August, causing speculation that price pressures will remain low over the next six months. The figures are the latest in a series of disappointing economic data releases, which means the Bank of England is likely to push back a rate rise. “With consumer price inflation flat in August and core inflation easing back to 1.0%, there is little immediate pressure on the Bank of England to start raising interest rates,” Howard Archer, chief UK and European economist at IHS Global Insight told the BBC. “Further reason for Bank of England caution on interest rates is the recent evidence that the economy has hit a soft patch during the third quarter,” he said. Consumer prices rose 0.2 percent on the month but were unchanged from a year earlier, the Office for National Statistics said, in line with economists’ expectations for a slight fall in annual inflation from 0.1 percent. Core inflation, which ignores volatile moves in the price of energy, food, alcoholic drinks and tobacco, rose by an annual 1.0 percent in August.

Britain’s Minister of State for Trade & Investment Francis Maude has announced an agreement with India which will strengthen commercial ties between India and the UK. India and Britain will collaborate to create a ‘FinTech bridge’ between the two countries. Led by Alok Vajpeyi and Britain’s Startupbootcamp, it will encourage close partnership and investments in Britain and Indian FinTech companies, and help them expand globally. Britain and India have always had strong business links; in 2014-15 India emerged as Britain’s third biggest job creator, creating 7,730 new jobs. Opportunity for investment in India is blossoming, with its economic growth rate at 6.4 percent – well above the global rate of 3 percent. Many UK firms in this sector are already well established in India, including Standard Chartered and HSBC. In the announcement, made to over 200 students at the IIT Bombay, Francis Maude said: “Our Government is committed to an enhanced partnership with India. I will be meeting Indian Government and business leaders to discuss how we can support Indian PM Modi’s aspirations for India’s economy. “It will encourage close collaboration and investment in UK and Indian Fintech companies and help them expand globally. Whether their focus is financial inclusion or access to lending, Fintech companies are creating global solutions.” The initiative will be called ‘FinTech20 India’, in close partnership with FinTechCity of the UK, and will search for the twenty best FinTech innovators in India. Companies will be selected by a panel of experts from the UK and India and will be promoted in the FinTech50 2016 when it is released to a world-wide audience next year. Prime Minister Modi, whose goal is to elevate India’s status globally as a country for investment, has described India’s engagement with the UK as an “unbeatable combination”. UK Investor have partnered with Charles Hanover Investments to offer a free report detailing further the investment opportunity in Asia. To download it, click here.

Friday proved another tough day for Asian markets, with Tokyo bearing the brunt of the volatility.

Japan’s Nikkei benchmark index spent most of the day in the red, closing down 0.19% at 18,264.22. Although it surged almost 8% on Wednesday, the Tokyo index closed down 2.5% on Thursday – sustaining some heavy losses. Investor sentiment is being increasingly affected by speculation that the US Federal Reserve will raise interest rates at their meeting next week, which is affecting markets globally. However, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō is continuing to instigate policy to stimulate the economy, including the news that Japan Post is seeking to raise as much as 1.39tn yen ($11.5bn, £7.4bn) in a stock market listing. The Japan Post controls the country’s largest bank, Japan Post Bank, and Japan Post Insurance, the biggest insurer and will be be one of Japan’s largest public share sales in more than 30 years. Chief cabinet secretary Yoshihide Suga said the share offering would encourage a shift of savings out of bank deposits and into the stock market.

The Bank of England voted to keep interest rates at their record low of 0.5% yesterday, with just one member voting against.

The MPC reiterated that it did not feel the volatility in China would slow down economic growth in this country, and that interest rates will still be raised in the near future. However, it lowered its estimate for the UK’s economic growth in the third quarter of this year from 0.7% down to 0.6%. The pound jumped to a two-week high against the dollar on the news. The MPC said in the minutes of its monthly policy meeting that “although the downside risks emanating from overseas had risen, it would be premature to draw strong inferences from this month’s events for the likely path of activity in the United Kingdom.” The Bank of England’s governor Mark Carney commented: “Domestic momentum is being underpinned by robust real income growth, supportive credit conditions, and elevated business and consumer confidence. “The rate of unemployment has fallen by over two percentage points since the middle of 2013, although that decline has levelled off more recently.” Analysts are speculating that the Federal Reserve will raise rates in the US next week for the first time since the financial crisis; if so, effects will be felt across markets globally and the Bank of England may be more inclined to follow suit.  

British house prices have increased 9 percent in the three months to August, according to mortgage lender Halifax. Prices have jumped 2.7 percent in the last month, with the average price of a home across the UK now at £204,674, acording to the Halifax measure.

The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Rics) also released figures today, warning that house price inflation across the UK is ikely to hit 6% this year. At the start of 2015, Rics expected that prices would rise by just 3%.

Halifax economist Martin Ellis told the BBC that “strengthening demand, and highly constrained supply, are likely to mean that house price growth continues to be robust in the short-term.”

Asian stocks were off to a bleak start on Thursday, as economic data from Japan weighed heavily on investors. Japan’s Nikkei closed down 2.5 percent at 18,299.62, after surging nearly 8 percent on Wednesday morning. Core machinery orders, Japan’s most important gauge of capital expenditure, fell for the second month in a row in July, down 3.6 percent. This is a further indication that Japan’s economy may not recover as quickly as expected after a disappointing second quarter. In China, the benchmark Shanghai Composite was down 1.1% to 3,206.69, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was down 2.2% to 21,639.29 points. Figures released on Thursday showed China’s consumer price index (CPI) unexpectedly rose to 2% in August from a year ago marking a one-year high. However the rise was mainly due to higher pork prices, rather than economic growth; pork is a big contributor to consumer prices in China and rose from 16.7 percent last year to 19.6 percent in August.