Beijing is keen to show results after four rounds of policy easing, so China’s big banks are playing along, highlighting their efforts to boost lending to cash-starved small firms, offering collateral waivers and setting loan targets. But in reality, banks’ loan eligibility requirements for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) remain stringent, making it too difficult or too expensive for them to borrow, according to bankers and company executives, Reuters reported. That has forced some small firms, including exporters, to simply give up on borrowing and put investment plans on hold.

China’s local governments may have accumulated 40 trillion yuan ($5.8 trillion) of off-balance sheet debt, or even more, suggesting further defaults are in store, according to S&P Global Ratings. “The potential amount of debt is an iceberg with titanic credit risks,” S&P credit analysts led by Gloria Lu wrote in a report Tuesday. Much of the build-up relates to local government financing vehicles, which don’t necessarily have the full financial backing of local governments themselves, Bloomberg News reported.

China’s peer-to-peer lenders expect their numbers to collapse from more than 1,500 to as few as 50 over the next 12 months, as regulators push through tough reforms while also barring company executives from fleeing the country. Peer-to-peer lending, the business of connecting private lenders with borrowers online, is a $120bn industry in China and traditionally has been lightly regulated with a high risk and return profile, the Financial Times reported.

India’s Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services Ltd (IL&FS) said the country’s appellate company law tribunal has passed an interim order granting a moratorium on all creditor actions against the company and its units, providing some relief to the debt-laden firm, Reuters reported. The move will preserve the value of the group’s assets and also help the new IL&FS board in its effort to evaluate and prepare a resolution plan, IL&FS said in a statement on Monday.

KKR & Co is seeking to acquire assets from stressed Indian shadow lenders, as it tries to take advantage of the market disruption after a rare money market default by Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services Ltd., Bloomberg News reported. The private equity firm’s two Indian credit units may spend as much as 20 billion rupees ($270 million) combined to purchase portfolios from local non-banking finance companies, Sanjay Nayar, KKR’s India chief executive officer, said in an phone interview Friday. KKR is also seeking outright acquisitions of Indian non-bank lenders and

Former prime minister Dame Jenny Shipley gave evidence for a second day at Auckland High Court rejecting claims that Mainzeal, a construction company she chaired, was insolvent as early as 2008, Stuff.co.nz reported. Mainzeal was put into receivership in early February 2013, but liquidators Andrew Bethell and Brian Mayo-Smith of BDO allege the company traded while insolvent, and are suing some of its former directors, including Shipley, for up to $75 million in damages to repay Mainzeal's creditors. Shipley betrayed no nerves while giving ev

The bankruptcy court has decided to entertain a plea by Videocon Group founder Venugopal Dhoot seeking to consolidate separate insolvency proceedings initiated by lenders led by State Bank of India against 15 of his companies under a single court, the Economic Times reported. National Company Law Tribunal’s (NCLT) principal bench in New Delhi on Thursday admitted Dhoot’s plea and sought a reply from SBI by October 24. The country’s top bank and other lenders had filed separate proceedings against Videocon companies in different courts during June-September to recover Rs 2

The International Monetary Fund launched formal bailout talks with Pakistan on Thursday, and IMF managing director Christine Lagarde said she would require “absolute transparency” of Pakistan’s debts, including those owed to China, Reuters reported. She said such disclosures were necessary to determine the debt sustainability of countries seeking IMF loans. The requirements are likely to shine a spotlight on the extent, composition and terms of Pakistan’s debts to China for infrastructure projects as part of Beijing’s massive Belt and Road building program.