PRESS DIGEST-Financial Times - October 23

Oct 23 (Reuters) - The following are the top stories in the Financial Times. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.

Headlines

UK regulator sues crypto exchange HTX over unlawful promotions

NatWest and Lloyds scale back new lending to broadband challengers

Britain increases oversight of Apple and Google in mobile

Grocery supplier Princes plans to raise $537 million in London debut

Overview

Britain's markets regulator has filed a lawsuit against HTX, a global crypto exchange advised by Chinese entrepreneur Justin Sun, accusing it of unlawfully promoting crypto asset services to UK consumers.

NatWest NWG.L and Lloyds LLOY.L have scaled back new lending to the heavily indebted UK altnet sector, as the upstart fibre broadband companies battle high interest rates and low customer uptake.

The UK Competition and Markets Authority moved to loosen thegripof Apple AAPL.O and Google GOOGL.O in smartphones by designating them as having "strategic market status", giving it the powers to demand the tech giants make specific changes to boost competition.

Princes Group plans to raise 400 million pounds ($536.84 million) in its London IPO to fund expansion, the grocery supplier said, targeting a lower-than-anticipated valuation of up to 1.24 billion pounds in a sluggish UK IPO market.

($1 = 0.7451 pounds)