Twenty years ago, a dangerous cocktail of debt accumulated in foreign money and deteriorating exchange rates led emerging markets into financial meltdown, the Financial Times reported. In the aftermath, countries vowed to repent of the “original sin” of borrowing huge sums in non-domestic currencies. Major emerging markets went from having more than three-quarters of their debt in foreign currencies to around half. Finance ministers were applauded for better protecting economies from swings in global market sentiment.

South Korea’s household debt rose to a record Won1,200tn ($973bn) at the end of last year, worsening one of the country’s biggest vulnerabilities even as the government strives to put the national mortgage stock on a more stable basis, the Financial Times reported. The country’s household debt stands at more than 160 per cent of household incomes, having risen steadily for more than three decades, and is seen as one of the economy’s weakest points.

Tajikistan, one of the world’s poorest countries, is discussing a possible International Monetary Fund bailout programme worth as much as $500m as its economy suffers the fallout from Russia’s recession. Jamoliddin Nuraliev, deputy head of Tajikistan’s central bank, told the Financial Times that the IMF could lend to the central Asian country under its extended-credit facility and that $500m would be a “reasonable” amount, although he added the government had not yet decided whether to make a formal request for assistance. “We are in a dialogue with the fund,” he said.

Twenty years ago, a dangerous cocktail of debt accumulated in foreign money and deteriorating exchange rates led emerging markets into financial meltdown, the Financial Times reported. In the aftermath, countries vowed to repent of the “original sin” of borrowing huge sums in non-domestic currencies. Major emerging markets went from having more than three-quarters of their debt in foreign currencies to around half. Finance ministers were applauded for better protecting economies from swings in global market sentiment.

Administrators have moved to sell assets owned by companies belonging to federal MP Clive Palmer, including a Bombardier Global Express aircraft that is the property of Palmer Aviation, which owes $26 million, ABC News reported. Creditors of Mr Palmer's aviation company met yesterday in Sydney and decided to put it into liquidation. Liquidators FTI Consulting said the process would start in March. "At that meeting, creditors resolved to place the company into liquidation, with FTI Consulting to act as liquidators," an FTI statement confirmed.

Rajah & Tann Singapore LLP, Southeast Asia’s largest law firm, reckons the region’s rising bond defaults will inflict as much pain on creditors as the financial crises of 2008 and 1998, Bloomberg News reported. As distress spreads from shipping to mining and retail to construction industries, the law firm said in an interview that recovery rates will be similar to those seen in the global credit meltdown and Asian financial crisis.

Even by the standards of the Chinese financial system, the volume of funding provided by the People’s Bank of China to the banks in the run-up to the Chinese new year holiday was large. FT Confidential Research (FTCR), a research service from the Financial Times, estimates that a net Rmb2.7tn ($415bn) was pumped into the interbank market in January alone, including more than Rmb1tn through open market operations.

India’s place as an emerging market bright spot is under threat from simmering troubles in a banking system weighed down by bad loans, the Financial Times reported. The signs of distress are clear. Last week, Reserve Bank of India governor Raghuram Rajan warned Indian lenders to brace for a year of “deep surgery” as a balance sheet clean-up began. Shares in state-backed banks, which control roughly three quarters of assets, have plunged. Financial results have been brutal too.

China’s central bank will increase the frequency of its money supply operations, with immediate effect, in a move to ensure there is ample liquidity in the banking system amid unprecedented capital outflow, the Financial Times reported. The People’s Bank of China is facing a tricky balancing act as it attempts to lower financing costs to support economic growth without resorting to heavy-handed monetary easing that could fuel capital flight.

Global bitcoin exchange Kraken said on Wednesday significant progress has been made in the investigation into claims of creditors of bankrupt exchange MtGox, Reuters reported. In 2014, MtGox Co Ltd, a Tokyo-based bitcoin exchange, was forced to file for bankruptcy after hackers stole an estimated $650 million worth of customer bitcoins. Kraken was appointed in November of that year to assist Tokyo district court-appointed trustee Nobuaki Kobayashi in the bankruptcy investigation of missing bitcoins, receiving claims and distributing remaining assets to creditors of MtGox.