Good morning from the Financial Times.

Today is Friday, December 5th, and this is your FT News briefing.

The big four auditors continue to reign supreme in the UK.

Plus, higher interest rates in Japan are doing interesting things to currency trades and the bond market.

I'm Mark Filipino, and here's the news you need to start your day.

Big four accounting firms continue to dominate the UK's largest audits. That's according to

the industry watchdog, the Financial Reporting Council.

So what does the stranglehold mean for the rest of the market? The FFT's accountancy correspondent

Elie Sheva Kissen reported on this and joins me now. Hi, Elie Sheva. Hi. So this report from the

Financial Reporting Council, what did it find? So it found that non-Big Four

firms had increased their share of audits for public interest entities by one percentage

point, but that's pretty small for an entire year of effort from the regulator. So the

big four accounting firms, Deloitte, EY, KPMG and PWC, they've maintained a stranglehold on

major audits for years. They took 98% with the fees paid by by accounting firms, Deloitte, EY, KPMG and PWC, they've maintained a stranglehold on major

audits for years.

They took 98% with the fees paid by the Futsi 350 this year.

Smaller firms really struggle to break into that market, partly because it's more hazardous,

they're more difficult, complex audits, and partly because major companies prefer to have

the big brand of a big four firm doing their audits for them.

And why is this a big deal? I mean, they are called the big four for a reason, right?

Having just four firms do all the major audits for the Futsi 350 is a problem because when you have too few firms,

the issue is what happens if one of those

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