Anbang Insurance Group of China is in talks to buy the large real-estate arm of the failed German lender Hypo Real Estate AG, in a potential billion-euro deal that would expand a global shopping spree by the Beijing-based firm, according to people familiar with the matter, The Wall Street Journal reported. State-owned bank Hypo Real Estate, based in Munich, has said it is working to sell its real-estate lending division, Deutsche Pfandbriefbank AG, known as PBB, through either an initial public offering or an outright sale.

NZF Group, the former financial services company, has entered voluntary administration after its second reverse listing proposal fell through, Scoop.co.nz reported. Last month the Auckland-based finance company said it would look to find a way to return funds to its noteholders "in a timely and cost effective manner" after plans for its listed shell to be used by Inventory Technologies in a reverse listing fell through. NZF is now appointing administrators to "expedite a timely distribution of funds to the holders of NZF capital notes," it said in a statement.

Investors still wondering how Kaisa Group Holdings Ltd. doubled its debt in six months and triggered China’s first property bond default may want to read page 63 of its 2014 interim report. There, in footnote No. 15 of the Shenzhen-based company’s balance sheet, is a reference to 11 billion yuan ($1.8 billion) in advance deposits for property projects from third parties and for 1.15 billion yuan that needed to be refunded, Bloomberg News reported. At issue is whether these deposits were initially classified properly as current liabilities on Kaisa’s books.

In cutting interest rates to a fresh record low of 2.0% Tuesday, Australia’s central bank is hoping to give a jolt to an economy that’s suffering from the end of a decadelong mining boom, The Wall Street Journal reported. But a series of rate cuts in the past three years have failed to achieve the Reserve Bank of Australia’s goal of fostering manufacturing and other businesses that lost out during the era of high commodity prices. Weighed down by high costs, weak consumer demand and other worries—many of which are hangovers of the boom—businesses are reluctant to invest.

Lawmakers in Cyprus on Saturday passed key insolvency laws designed to open the taps for more international bailout cash, WTVQ reported on an Associated Press story. The vote makes it possible to operate foreclosure laws that international creditors have demanded as a condition for extending more loans to Cyprus. Recession, high unemployment and declining incomes have produced defaults on more than half of all private loans. The new laws should make it easier for banks to demand payment or seize assets, thereby reducing the banks' own liabilities.

As debt has grown across Asia, an increasing portion of the lending has come from nonbank lenders—raising regulators’ concerns about the stability of their financial systems, The Wall Street Journal reported. “Shadow banking” has been a well-documented driver of China’s debt boom, accounting for about a fifth of total lending since 2008. But shadow banks also have boosted lending in South Korea, Thailand and Malaysia, all places where consumers have grown increasingly indebted.

The Monetary Board placed the Surigaonon Rural Banking Corporation under the receivership of the Philippine Deposit Insurance Corporation (PDIC) by virtue of an MB resolution dated April 23, Minda News reported. As receiver, PDIC took over the bank the following day. Surigaonon Rural Banking Corporation is a 10-unit rural bank with head offices located at the junction of Rizal and Gemina Streets in this city. It has another branch in the city, and in the cities of Tacloban, Cagayan de Oro, Davao and Butuan.

China’s central bank is readying its most aggressive easing tool since it launched a massive stimulus plan in 2008 to counter the global financial crisis, in a bid to help one of the government’s most important economic-rescue initiatives get off the ground, The Wall Street Journal reported. Chinese leaders have singled out the ballooning debts of various levels of government as an economic threat that must be defused.

Cyprus's international lenders have yet to decide if recent changes to the island's insolvency law are enough to allow an outstanding review of its aid programme to be concluded, the European Central Bank said on Monday, Reuters reported. Earlier this month, lawmakers in Cyprus approved legislation governing foreclosures, paving the way for the island to join the ECB's sovereign bond-buying programme. But the ECB said no final decision had been taken as to whether the Cypriot action was enough to meet the terms of its aid-for-reform programme.

Fitch Ratings lowered Japan’s credit rating as the country continued to wrestle with staggering debt, the International New York Times reported. The rating agency said Monday that the government did not include sufficient measures in its budget to replace a sales tax increase it delayed in the current fiscal year, which ends next March. Japan’s debt, more than twice the size of its economy, is the largest among developed nations. The country has struggled to find a way to cover rising costs for health and elder care.