The Japanese government is considering financial aid to the troubled Tokyo Electric Power Co., or Tepco, through an injection of public funds or debt guarantees, a government official said Friday, The Wall Street Journal reported. "Unless the government takes such a step it will be difficult for Tepco'' over time to secure necessary capital, Masayuki Sudo, a spokesman for the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, said in an interview Friday morning.

Three of the four NZ-registered companies associated with IT services company DataSouth have been placed in liquidation, The National Business Review reported. A fourth, DataSouth Finance is now subject to a Serious Fraud Office investigation, revealed by the agency late Friday. The investigation relates to lease deals with DataSouth Clients, bankrolled by South Canterbury Finance.

Ratings agency Standard & Poor's cut Cyprus' government debt grade by one notch on Wednesday and warned it could issue the euro country another downgrade because of the financial system's exposure to debt-saddled Greece, the Associated Press reported. The agency said the Cypriot financial system's "significant" exposure to Greece represented a "ratings weakness." S&P credit analyst Benjamin Young said "the increasing likelihood that the Greek government will restructure its debt" heightened the risk that Cyprus would be impacted negatively.

Princes Wharf developer David Henderson averted bankruptcy this morning to allow him and his creditors time to discuss another proposal that could stop Inland Revenue's application, The New Zealand Herald reported. High Court Associate Judge Jeremy Doogue adjourned IRD's application to bankrupt Henderson to April 19, to allow Henderson's creditors to vote on a new proposal. The meeting is expected to be held within the next 10 working days. IRD lawyer Nick Malarao said the commissioner opposed the adjournment, stating it was in public interest that Henderson be bankrupted.

Philippine central-bank governor Amando Tetangco Jr. said Tuesday that inflation in the country is under control and that the bank might not have to raise interest rates as much as some economists predict to contain the threat, The Wall Street Journal reported. Last Thursday, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas increased its overnight borrowing rate by a quarter percentage point to 4.25%—the first interest-rate move since July 2009—and many analysts expect more rate moves to follow. Some predicted interest rates could increase by a total of one percentage point this year.

Sixteen Hong Kong banks have agreed on a deal to enable investors in structured products of the now bankrupt Lehman Brothers recover a majority of their investments, Reuters reported. Investors in Hong Kong lost nearly $2.5 billion on structured products, called 'minibonds' offered by U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers, which collapsed in 2008. A statement from receivers PricewaterhouseCoopers on Sunday said the agreement was to result in most of Lehman's minibond investors recovering over 80 percent of their original investment from the underlying collateral.

A damning internal report by Afghanistan’s own Central Bank depicts the Afghan political elite as using Kabul Bank, the country’s biggest financial institution, as its private piggy bank, the International Herald Tribune reported. The report both raises questions about why the authorities did not act sooner and suggests that the answers lay in the political connections of the bank’s officers and shareholders — the recipients of most of the more than $900 million in loans.

Japan Airlines Corp., once the world’s largest international carrier, is set to emerge from bankruptcy administration this week as a smaller company more reliant on Asian routes and global partners, Bloomberg reported. JAL has scaled back its global network, chopping 49 routes, including Sao Paulo, Amsterdam and Milan, and grounding the last remnants of what was the world’s largest Boeing Co. 747 fleet as it cuts 103 planes. The Tokyo-based airline, which holds its monthly press briefing at 5 p.m.

One of Australia's largest solar panel installers has gone into administration leaving debts understood to be worth millions of dollars and unfulfilled contracts with customers in Canberra, Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane, The Canberra Times reported. DCM Green went into voluntary administration on March 10. Administrator Alan Hayes said on Friday the company was insolvent, had ceased trading and all staff had been dismissed. He was investigating whether it would be possible to resurrect the company but it was too soon to tell.

Afghanistan’s government has agreed to wind down and sell off the embattled Kabul Bank to meet a condition imposed by the International Monetary Fund for resuming financial support to the country, an Afghan official said, the Financial Times reported. The IMF, backed by western donors, had demanded the government place the country’s biggest lender into receivership as part of a plan to shore up the financial system following the bank’s near-collapse last year.