The Incubator Bank of Japan, a small, unlisted lender that specialises in small business loans, was expected to file for bankruptcy protection on Friday, Japan's financial regulator said, Reuters reported. Depositors will be protected for up to 10 million yen ($119,200) in principal, the regulator said. The Bank of Japan said it expected no adverse impact on the country's banking system from the small lender's failure and financial markets took the news in stride.

More than 90% of Dubai World's creditors, holding around $14 billion of debt, have agreed to a lock-up deal, a person familiar with the situation said, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. The lock-up agreement - preventing the creditors from selling their debt - is a step toward the restructuring of around $23.5 billion in debt under the Dubai World corporate umbrella. A consortium, comprised largely of banks, is required to sign up to the lock-up for the restructuring to go ahead.

The higher requirements for the capital base of banks under the so-called Basel III proposition will not affect Korean banks, a government official in charge of the issue said Wednesday, The Korea Times reported. To the envy of many European and American institutions, Korean banks need not shrink their assets or raise more capital, because they already meet those strict capital-to-asset standards, said Kim Yong-beom, director general of Seoul’s G20 committee.

Demand for withdrawals from the beleaguered Afghan bank whose troubles have sparked a political and economic crisis here dropped sharply Tuesday, a day after the country's central banker said the bank would get a bailout if it needed one, The Wall Street Journal reported. Nearly a week of massive withdrawals sapped Kabul Bank's cash reserves, threatening to render the politically connected lender insolvent.

The timber investment company Willmott Forests has collapsed, owing about $520 million, The Sydney Morning Herald reported. The company, which had been suspended from the stock exchange since July 1, went into receivership yesterday after failing to strike a deal with its bankers, Commonwealth Bank and St George. The banks, who are owed about $120 million, yesterday appointed receivers Mark Korda, Mark Mentha and Bryan Webster of KordaMentha.

One of the principal owners of the Afghan bank at the center of an accelerating financial crisis here said depositors had withdrawn $180 million in the past two days. He predicted a “revolution” in the country’s financial system unless the Afghan government and the United States moved quickly to help stabilize the bank, The New York Times reported. Khalil Frozi, one of the two largest shareholders of Kabul Bank, said reports indicating that the institution had lost as much as $300 million were overstated.

Lehman Brothers Holdings' Japanese subsidiary is one of the first major units to get going with its liquidation process, after it got court approval for its debt repayment plans, the Nikkei business daily reported. Lehman Brothers Japan Inc got approval for liquidation from the Tokyo district court and secured support for the plans from a majority of its creditors on Wednesday, and is expected to start repaying its debt by late November, the paper reported.

Just over half of Auckland's five-star Westin will be off-limits to guests after a fight between receivers and suite owners, The New Zealand Herald reported. Out-of-pocket investors fear receivers might disconnect electricity, phone, television and access to their rooms. Westin, the international hotel operator, will lose control of 110 of the 170 rooms at the Lighter Quay hotel. Graham Wilkinson, a hospitality expert representing owner/investors of 110 units, said his group was extremely disappointed.

The Afghan government intervened to shore up a deeply troubled bank on Tuesday, sending shock waves through the capital and prompting fears that Afghanistan’s pervasive corruption had now put the country’s entire financial system at risk, The New York Times reported. Sherkhan Farnood and Khalilullah Frozi, the top executives of Kabul Bank, abruptly left their jobs this week at the demand of officials at the Central Bank of Afghanistan, after the discovery that Kabul Bank’s losses might exceed $300 million. That number far exceeds the bank’s assets.

Seven months after Japan Airlines Corp. filed the country's biggest nonfinancial bankruptcy petition, the carrier unveiled a restructuring plan that accelerates a big reduction in its work force and cuts unprofitable routes more deeply than expected, The Wall Street Journal reported. The carrier plans to refinance its roughly 300 billion yen, or about $3.5 billion, in debt by the end of March, according to a person familiar with the matter, ensuring months of protracted negotiations with its main lenders in the coming months.