THE DAILY BRIEFING

AMERICAN GROWTH The US economy grew at an annual rate of 3pc in the third quarter of the year. That is the equivalent of 0.75pc on a quarterly basis, outstripping growth of 0.4pc in the UK.

CARD CASE A £14bn lawsuit against Mastercard could be revived after lawyers for former financial ombudsman Walter Merricks – who filed the class action – launched appeals to challenge the Competition Appeal Tribunal’ decision to shut it down.

Merricks’s case claims Mastercard broke European Union competition law by charging rip-off fees to nearly 46m consumers. MERGER OFF Swiss chemicals maker Clariant and US rival Huntsman have abandoned their £15bn merger in the face of opposition from activist shareholders. CASH PILE French asset manager Amundi has increased the cash pile it looks after for investors to £1.2 trillion. It raked in £27.7bn in the three months to September 30. TECH STAKE The private equity arm of Lloyds Bank has taken a stake in tech company IP Solutions, which provides internet communications services for more than 200 companies. ONLINE OUTAGE Banking giant HSBC has apologised after customers were unable to access online and mobile banking services yesterday morning, although they gave no reason for the outage or the numbers affected. BEAN COUNTER Power station owner Drax has appointed former Johnson Matthey bean counter Den Jones, 52, as interim finance chief. FREIGHT DEAL AIM-listed freight management firm Xpediator has bought Basildon-based freight firm Benfleet Forwarding for £6.55m. TRACKER TIME Low-cost tracker funds could eventually account for a 90pc chunk of the market for stock investments, legendary asset manager

Jack Bogle, who founded The Vanguard Group in 1974, has said.