Friday newspaper round-up: North Korea, May's speech, SEC, HBOS

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un Friday mocked Donald Trump as "mentally deranged" – and warned he will make the US president "pay dearly" for threatening the destruction of his country at the United Nations. Then hours later Ri Yong Ho, the North Korean foreign minister, raised the stakes suggesting Pyongyang could consider a hydrogen bomb test on the Pacific Ocean of an unprecedented scale. - Telegraph

Donald Trump has issued a new executive order that expands US sanctions on North Korea’s shipping, banking, ports and manufacturing. Trump also claimed China’s banking system had shut down business with the country. Earlier in the day Reuters reported that China’s central bank had ordered financial institutions to implement UN sanctions rigorously after frequent complaints from Washington that Beijing was leaving open too many loopholes. - Guardian

Theresa May will call on EU leaders to be more “imaginative and creative” about Brexit in her long-awaited speech in Florence, after Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief negotiator, warned that a substantive offer to settle the UK’s bills was needed to break the deadlock in talks. The prime minister will urge her European counterparts to share her vision for building a successful new relationship between the UK and EU after Brexit, despite talks with the European commission negotiators having reached a stalemate after three rounds. - Guardian

Theresa May will today tell EU leaders that they share a “profound sense of responsibility” to forge a Brexit deal for the benefit of those who “inherit the world we leave them”. The Prime Minister will use a landmark speech in Florence to tell European negotiators and heads of state that “the eyes of the world are upon us” and that they must use imagination to make a success of “this chapter of our European history”. - Telegraph

China and Hong Kong have begun to feel the first menacing tremors from monetary tightening by the US Federal Reserve, an early warning of what may lie in store for East Asia as borrowing costs rise and dollar liquidity drains away. The Fed’s decision to start unwinding its $4.5 trillion (£3.3 trillion) balance sheet after eight years of emergency stimulus may force Asian central banks to tighten in parallel. It greatly complicates the coming task for China, shortening the window of opportunity needed to put its financial house in order. - Telegraph

Wall Street’s top regulator came under fire on Thursday about its cybersecurity and disclosure practices after admitting hackers had breached its database of corporate announcements in 2016 and may have used it for insider trading. The breach involved Securities and Exchange Commission’s Edgar filing system, which houses market-moving information with millions of filings ranging from quarterly earnings to statements on acquisitions. - Guardian

Confidential minutes from a high-level City meeting in 2007 raise questions about the ruling this week by the Financial Reporting Council that KPMG was “reasonable” in vouching for the health of the soon-to-fail bank HBOS. With the credit crunch in full swing, a meeting of investment chiefs and senior accounting professionals at the offices of Schroders two weeks before Christmas 2007 heard how the FRC was “fully aware that there might be ‘going concern’ problems” at UK banks. - The Times

Eon has announced plans to scrap its standard variable tariff, in a first for the Big Six energy giants. The German-owned group said yesterday it would put all customers onto fixed tariffs if they agreed to fit a smart meter in their home that measures energy consumption in real-time. - The Times

Britain’s pensioners are racking up ever-growing levels of debts as higher house prices mean families take longer to get on the property ladder, and people have to borrow more to cover care costs or help their children financially. The mortgage debts of over-65s are set to double over the next 13 years from £20.1bn to £39.9bn by 2030, the Financial Conduct Authority believes. - Telegraph

Amazon and Facebook are likely to bid for Premier League streaming rights, which will further escalate the huge financial boom for England’s top clubs, the Manchester United vice-chairman, Ed Woodward, has said. In his quarterly call with bank executives who invest in United’s shares on the New York stock exchange, Woodward said the pair were very interested in the last round of rights deals for 2016-19, which the Premier League sold primarily to BSkyB and BT for £8.4bn. - Guardian

Uber is expected to find out on Friday whether Transport for London will give it a licence to continue operating in the capital. The US car-hailing smartphone app launched in London in 2012 and has signed up millions of customers as well as thousands of drivers, but faced vocal opposition from the taxi trade. - Telegraph

Flagging down a waiter to ask for the bill is too time consuming and socially awkward for young Britons, who prefer the idea of paying a robot instead. Two-thirds of those aged between 21 and 34-years old would be happy to pay via a machine instead of a person, according to a survey from WorldPay. - Telegraph

MPs are set to investigate whether the spread of electric vehicles could crash Britain’s electricity grid. The Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy committee said it will examine the challenges that electric cars pose to infrastructure and what actions will be needed to support the industry’s growth. Critics say the mass take-up of electric cars could overload the power network, forcing the network’s owners to invest large sums reinforcing it. - The Times

Confidence among property professionals about the health of the real estate market has doubled since last year, according to a new survey. Property investors, developers and agents controlling a combined £400bn of assets were asked about how optimistic they were about the future of UK real estate, with 29pc saying they were feeling optimistic. - Telegraph

Australia's biggest bank is eyeing up a float of its global asset management business after securing a multi-billion pound deal to sell its life insurance unit to Hong Kong-based AIA. The Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) announced the moves as it battles to clean up its reputation after being accused of allegedly breaching money laundering and terrorism financing laws more than 53,000 times. - Telegraph

New rules requiring companies to publish the difference between what male and female employees earn was supposed to help to close Britain’s 18.1 per cent gender pay gap. However, as it became the first FTSE 100 company to publish its figures under the new rules, SSE, the utility group, admitted yesterday that the difference had widened in the last year. - The Times

Driverless vehicles could build a “gold mine” of personal data for private companies and would make it easier for them to target people as consumers, an Australian law professor has warned. Des Butler, of the Queensland University of Technology, said the privacy risks involved in driverless vehicles were a “sleeper issue” that regulators were yet to fully consider, even though car manufacturers say the technology could be on roads in Australia by 2020. - Guardian