The government's student loan scheme is open to exploitation, the Ombudsman said, highlighting 13,000 default cases recorded over the past three years involving at its peak HK$200 million in unpaid debts, the South China Morning Post reported. Over half of the unpaid debts came from the extended non-means-tested loan scheme, which offers loans at lower-than-market rates - mostly to the working population to enrol in part-time courses.

Sunac China Holdings Ltd. Chairman Sun Hongbin defended Kaisa Group Holdings Ltd.’s debt-restructuring proposal, saying it’s “reasonable” and that his company may seek other opportunities if its planned acquisition fails. Sunac won’t let the purchase of the troubled Shenzhen-based developer affect its own operations, Sun said at a briefing in Hong Kong on Tuesday. Kaisa’s situation is worse than expected and the company “definitely” won’t be able to make coupon payments next month, Sun said.

Bonds of 11 Chinese companies now yield more than 15 percent as investors brace for the nation’s second onshore default amid record maturities in the coming quarter, Bloomberg News reported. Companies in Asia’s largest economy need to repay 1.5 trillion yuan ($242 billion) of local-currency notes in the period to June 30, the most for a quarter in Bloomberg data going back to 1998.

The U.S. and Europe are to blame for China’s formation of its own development bank after the Asian power was neglected in the structures of existing international banks, a top European Union official said Saturday, The Wall Street Journal reported. “China is aggressively stepping into an area where if we paid more attention, we would have had more normal relationships,” Kristalina Georgieva, vice president of the European Commission, said at the Brussels Forum, a foreign-policy conference.

The country’s savings rate, long one of the highest in the world, is now below zero. In short, Japan’s citizens are spending more than they earn, the International New York Times reported. By comparison, the rate in the United States, where consumers have a reputation for living beyond their means, is on the rise, hitting 5.5 percent in January. The reversal is stark. For decades, many Japanese hoarded cash, a habit that took hold in the years after World War II, when government protections like unemployment insurance and public pensions were scarce. Today, Japan is in a bind.

The five bills that make up the insolvency framework will not be heading to the plenum on Thursday as more time is needed to process them but an effort will be made to get them there before Easter, lawmakers said on Tuesday, Cyprus Mail reported. The decision was taken unanimously by the House Finance and Interior Committees. “At least as far as DIKO is concerned, an effort will be made to complete the examination of all the bills, all five, before Easter,” DIKO and House Finance Committee chairman Nicolas Papadopoulos said. The bills were now expected to reach the plenum on April 2.

Chinese banks have extended $16 billion in credit lines to shore up one of the country’s largest and most heavily indebted home builders, as pressure mounts on developers short of cash in a slumping property market, the International New York Times DealBook blog reported. The move by a group of mainly state-run banks to bolster the builder, Evergrande Real Estate Group, which is controlled by the colorful billionaire Hui Ka Yan, is the latest sign of tumult in China’s sprawling housing sector.

South Korean bulker operator Daebo International Shipping has filed for bankruptcy protection in the Southern District of New York, TradeWinds News reported. The Chapter 15 petition follows an application to commence rehabilitation proceedings in the Seoul Central District Court, which was submitted on 11 February 2015. Since then, at least five creditors have filed lawsuits against Daebo and its affiliates in the US, which is why observers say they aren't surprised by today’s revelation.

The financial world has pretty much moved on since Cyprus was briefly the epicenter of market anxiety. Two years ago this month, the country's banks failed en masse, A.T.M.s were rationing cash, and the integrity of the eurozone hung in the balance, the International New York Times reported. But after a contentious, internationally brokered “bail-in,’’ in which for the first time many bank depositors were forced to help pay for a eurozone rescue, Europe’s policy makers soon found other things to focus on.

China is signaling more measures are in the works to regain economic momentum and overcome weak demand from businesses and consumers, The Wall Street Journal reported. Policies unveiled at the annual session of China’s legislature this month called for maintaining a moderately high rate of growth—7%—and outlined further deficit spending to support the goal.