Japan’s consumer inflation picked up in February, adding to speculation that the Bank of Japan may raise interest rates again later this year, the Wall Street Journal reported. Overall consumer prices rose 2.8% from a year earlier in February, compared with the 2.2% increase in January, government data showed Friday. Food prices continued to rise, while the effects of the government’s support for energy bills tapered off.

Sri Lanka secured initial approval for the next loan tranche from a $3 billion International Monetary Fund bailout program, as the nation seeks to complete its debt restructuring, Bloomberg News reported. The staff-level agreement for the second review of the program gives the nation access to a payout of about $337 million — subject to approval from the IMF’s executive board, the Washington-based lender said in a statement. Funding is also contingent on implementation of prior actions, completion of financing assurances and adequate progress on debt restructuring, according to the statement.

Aircraft lessor Wilmington Trust SP Services has moved NCLAT, filing an appeal against an earlier order of NCLT, which had dismissed its insolvency plea against low-cost carrier SpiceJet. Wilmington Trust's petition has been listed for hearing on Thursday before a bench headed by the Chairperson Justice Ashok Bhushan of the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT), the Economic Times of India reported.

China's tightening of rules for consumer finance companies is likely to force consolidation in the roughly $120 billion sector that provides high-interest loans for millions of people shut out of traditional banking, Reuters reported. The National Financial Regulatory Administration (NFRA) announced revamped and stricter rules for the sector on Monday, measures that are expected to drive China's consumer finance companies to seek deeper-pocketed investors or merge.

Turkey’s central bank raised its key interest rate by 5 percentage points on Thursday, resuming a policy of rate hikes aimed at combating soaring inflation that is causing households severe economic pain, the Associated Press reported. In a surprise decision, the central bank said it was raising the benchmark one-week repo rate to 50%. The bank had been widely expected to keep the benchmark rate steady for a second month, ahead of mayoral elections on March 31.

An appeals court in Montenegro on Wednesday confirmed that a South Korean mogul known as “the cryptocurrency king” will be handed over to his native country, the Associated Press reported. Both South Korea and the U.S. had requested Do Kwon’s extradition from Montenegro. A Montenegrin court initially decided he should be handed over to the U.S. but that ruling was later overturned in favor of South Korea. The Appeals Court of Montenegro approved an earlier ruling by the High Court to extradite Kwon to South Korea rather than the United States, a statement said.

China Life Insurance Co. is in crunch talks with lenders to an office tower in Canary Wharf to help stave off the locality’s third potential major default, as the eastern financial district of London grapples with some of the city’s highest vacancy rates, Bloomberg News reported. The landlord is in discussions with Lloyds Banking Group Plc, which originally financed 10 Upper Bank Street before syndicating the vast majority of the debt to several Chinese banks, about a plan to avoid an event of default ahead of the loan’s maturity next month, people with knowledge of the negotiations said.

Troubled property developer China Evergrande Group says Beijing’s stock watchdog has fined it 4.2 billion yuan ($333.4 million) for allegedly falsifying its revenue, among other violations, as it conducts a deep clean of the troubled financial sector, the Associated Press reported. The company said in a release to mainland Chinese stock exchanges late Monday that its chairman, Hui Ka Yan, was fined 47 million yuan ($6.5 million) and banned from China’s markets for life.

The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) in Mumbai has admitted a corporate insolvency resolution process (CIRP) against over a century-old textile maker ShriVallabh Pittie (SVP) group’s affiliate Shrivallabh Pittie Industries Ltd in an application filed by the State Bank of India, the Economic Times of India reported. The lender had approached the tribunal after the company defaulted on its dues of about Rs 90 crore. The tribunal has also appointed Mukesh Verma as resolution professional.

Electric van leasing company EVCo has been put under insolvent liquidation, with debts of almost $50 million, the Straits Times reported. EVCo, also known as Strides DST, is 60 per cent owned by transport operator SMRT’s business arm Strides Holdings and 40 per cent by Dishangtie Green Technology (Hong Kong). The two-year-old firm was incorporated in March 2022 with a paid-up capital of $10 million.