Millions of nurses, teachers and members of the armed forces will receive a pay rise next April as Rishi Sunak unfreezes public sector pay in the budget.
The size of the pay rises will depend on recommendations from independent pay review bodies, which set pay for frontline workforces including nurses, police, prison officers and teachers.
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What can we expect from the budget?
The Treasury says the government will be running a full pay round and the awards will be announced next year once ministers respond to the pay review bodies’ recommendations.
Announcing his latest budget pay boost, Mr Sunak said: “The economic impact and uncertainty of the virus meant we had to take the difficult decision to pause public sector pay.
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“Along with our Plan for Jobs, this action helped us protect livelihoods at the height of the pandemic.
“And now, with the economy firmly back on track, it’s right that nurses, teachers and all the other public sector workers who played their part during the pandemic see their wages rise.”
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The chancellor says his temporary pay pause in November helped protect jobs at a time of crisis during the pandemic, but also ensured the gap between public and private sector pay did not widen further.
The Treasury also says that despite the public sector pay freeze, more than a million NHS workers received a 3% pay rise in 2021/22, meaning an average nurse will now receive around an additional £1,000 a year.
Mr Sunak signalled that pay rises for public sector staff were on the way in a Sunday TV interview when he said he would set out a “new pay policy” in his budget on Wednesday.
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Minimum wage increase criticised
Asked if public sector workers could expect pay increases, the chancellor said: “That will be one of the things that we talk about in the spending review.”
According to the Treasury, public sector average weekly earnings rose by 4.5% in 2020/21 while private sector wage increases were a third lower than they were pre-pandemic, at only 1.8%.
But the government claims that despite the one-year break, most public sector workers will still see their earnings rise and their weekly earnings have increased by an average of 3% since April.
The news on public sector pay follows the Treasury’s announcement that the national living wage will increase from £8.91 to £9.50 an hour from next April, an extra £1,000 a year for a full-time worker.
Young people and apprentices will also see their wages boosted as the national minimum wage for people aged 21-22 goes up to £9.18 an hour and the apprentice rate increases to £4.81 an hour.
The living wage increase was the latest in a blizzard of pre-budget announcements by the Treasury in recent days which provoked an explosion of anger in the Commons from Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle.
“At one time ministers did the right thing if they briefed before a budget – they walked,” he told MPs with his voice trembling with rage.
As MPs shouted “resign!”, Sir Lindsay went on: “Yes absolutely, resign. It seems to me we’ve got ourselves in a position that if you’ve not got it out five days before it’s not worth putting out.
“It’s not acceptable and the government shouldn’t try to run roughshod over this house. It will not happen!”
Follow budget coverage live on Sky News on Wednesday with the chancellor’s announcement from 12.30pm
With US President Donald Trump threatening to sue the BBC, how likely is the broadcaster to pay out? And how have those across the political spectrum been reacting?
And with 15 days until Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s budget, Matthew McGregor – the chief executive of campaign group 38 Degrees and a former digital strategist for both Labour and Barack Obama – takes issue with Sam’s take from yesterday and sends in a voice note.
And Sam and Anne discuss the latest twist in the Your Party saga, and it’s all about money.
Brazilâs central bank completed rules that bring crypto companies under banking-style oversight, classifying stablecoin transactions and certain self-custody wallet transfers as foreign-exchange operations.Â
Under Resolutions 519, 520 and 521, published Monday, the Banco Central do Brasil (BCB) established operational standards and authorization procedures for what it calls Sociedades Prestadoras de Serviços de Ativos Virtuais (SPSAVs), a new category of licensed virtual-asset service providers operating in the country.Â
The framework extends existing rules on consumer protection, transparency and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) to crypto brokers, custodians and intermediaries.Â
The rules will take effect on Feb. 2, 2026, with mandatory reporting for capital-market and cross-border operations set to begin on May 4, 2026.Â
Stablecoins under foreign exchange rules
Under Resolution 521, a purchase, sale or exchange of fiat-pegged virtual assets, including international transfers or payments using such assets, will be treated as foreign-exchange (FX) operations.Â
With this classification, stablecoin activity will be subject to the same scrutiny as cross-border remittances or currency trades.Â
Licensed FX institutions and the new SPSAVs will be able to perform these operations, subject to documentation and value limitations. According to the BCB, transactions with unlicensed foreign counterparts will be capped at $100,000 per transfer.Â
The rules also cover transfers to and from self-custodied wallets when intermediated by a service provider. This means that providers must identify the walletâs owner and maintain their processes that verify the origin and destination of the assets, even if the transfer itself isnât cross-border.Â
This provision extends AML and transparency obligations to areas previously considered outside the scope of regulated finance.
While the rules donât explicitly ban self-custody, they close a key reporting gap, forcing regulated exchanges and brokers to treat wallet interactions like formal FX operations.Â
BCB says the goal is to promote efficiency and legal certainty
In the announcement, the BCB said its goal is to ensure âgreater efficiency and legal certainty,â prevent regulatory arbitrage and align crypto activities with the countryâs balance-of-payments (BoP) statistics, which means making stablecoin transfers visible in official financial data.Â
The move follows months of public consultation and growing concern from the central bank on the dominance of stablecoin use in Brazil. On Feb. 7, BCB President Gabriel Galipolo said that around 90% of crypto activity in Brazil involved stablecoins, mainly used for payments.
Galipolo said the widespread use of stablecoins in payments presented regulatory and oversight challenges, particularly in areas such as money laundering and taxation.Â
Brazilâs central bank said the new framework aims to curb scams and illicit activity while providing legal clarity to crypto markets.Â
For crypto builders, this may raise compliance costs and reshape how local platforms interact with global liquidity. Smaller crypto players will be forced to compete with bigger institutions and meet more stringent banking-grade standards.Â
The rules will take effect in February 2026, but market participants are expected to start restructuring before then.Â
For Brazil, where crypto activity is second only to Argentina in Latin America, the new regulations signal a decisive shift from experimentation to integrated oversight.
The new rules show that crypto is welcome in the Brazilian financial ecosystem, but it will have to play by the same rules as fiat money.Â
Institutional investors are maintaining confidence in digital assets despite a sharp market correction in October, with most planning to expand their exposure in the months ahead, according to new research.
Over 61% of institutions plan to increase their cryptocurrency investments, while 55% hold a bullish short-term outlook, Swiss crypto banking group Sygnum said in a report released on Tuesday. The survey covered 1,000 institutional investors globally.
Roughly 73% of surveyed institutions are investing in crypto due to expectations of higher future returns, despite the industry still recovering from the record $20 billion market crash at the beginning of October.
However, investor sentiment continues facing uncertainty due to delays in key market catalysts, including the Market Structure bill and the approval of more altcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs).
While this uncertainty may carry over into 2026, Sygnumâs lead crypto asset ecosystem researcher, Lucas Schweiger, predicts a maturing digital asset market, where institutions seek diversified exposure with long-term growth expectations.
âThe story of 2025 is one of measured risk, pending regulatory decisions and powerful demand catalysts against a backdrop of fiscal and geopolitical pressures,â he said, adding:
âBut investors are now better informed. Discipline has tempered exuberance, but not conviction, in the marketâs long-term growth trajectory.âÂ
Despite Octoberâs correction, âpowerful demand catalystsâ and institutional participation remained at an all-time high, with the growing ETF applications signaling more institutional demand, added Schweiger.
Crypto staking ETFs may be the next institutional catalyst
Crypto staking ETFs may present the next fundamental catalyst for institutional cryptocurrency demand.
Over 80% of the surveyed institutions expressed interest in crypto ETFs beyond Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH), while 70% stated that they would start investing or increase their investments if these ETFs offered staking rewards.
Staking means locking your tokens into a proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchain network for a predetermined period to secure the network and earn passive income in exchange.
Meanwhile, investors are now anticipating the end of the government shutdown, which could bring âbulk approvalsâ for altcoin ETFs from the US Securities and Exchange Commission, catalyzing the ânext wave of institutional flows,â according to Sygnum.