Jan 29 (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
* Democratising Finance: Big banks eye peer-to-peer lending push
* Hinkley Point nuclear deal faces fresh delay
* Qatar and Brookfield win battle to take over Canary Wharf
* BP scales back on two Gulf of Mexico fields
Overview
* Societe Generale and Goldman Sachs Group Inc are among several banks that are discussing plans to back Aztec Money, a peer-to-peer financing platform. The sector is also attracting interests from high-profile individuals, with Arianna Huffington, the latest to join a P2P lender.
* UK's parliamentary watchdog has abandoned hopes for examining state support to a contract with French company EDF , which is behind a proposed 24 billion pound ($36.3 billion) twin reactor scheme in Somerset, where Hinkley Point is located. This comes after the watchdog predicted that a deal would not be struck before general elections in May.
* Songbird Estates Plc, agreed on Wednesday to a 2.6 billion pound offer from Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) and Brookfield for Canary Wharf, one of the world's leading financial districts. The board of Songbird maintained that the 350 pence per share offer undervalued the company but advised the minority investors to accept the deal as it had the support from the largest shareholders and there was no rival bid coming.
* BP Plc has handed U.S. oil company Chevron Corp a big stake in development of 1 billion barrels of crude in the Gulf of Mexico in a agreement that is worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
($1 = 0.6604 pounds) (Compiled by Shivam Srivastava in Bengaluru; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)