China's securities regulator said on Tuesday it would suspend brokerages from borrowing shares for lending and cap the size of the so-called securities re-lending business, as part of further efforts to curb short-selling, Reuters reported. The watchdog will also ban securities lending to investors who sell stocks on the same day of purchase, and vowed to crack down on illegal arbitrage using short-selling.

Three South Korean financial firms set aside almost $560 million combined to cover potential losses amid wider regulator concerns about real estate exposure as valuations continue to fall, Bloomberg News reported. Woori Financial Group Inc. booked a provision of 525 billion won ($396 million) in the fourth quarter after a “comprehensive examination on vulnerable areas” such as property, Vice President Sung-Wook Lee said on a call with analysts.

Europe's green energy transition is stuck between a rock and a hard place. A flood of cheap Chinese solar panel imports is driving record solar energy installations. But those same imports are crushing Europe's few local solar manufacturers, Reuters reported. Governments and industry are split over how to respond. Europe just had a bumper year for green energy. European Union countries installed record levels of solar capacity, 40% more than in 2022. The vast majority of those panels and parts came from China – in some cases, 95%, International Energy Agency data show.

Vadraj Cement, which was stuck in liquidation for more than five years under the Bombay High Court, has been shifted to the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) for debt resolution, giving lenders a glimmer of hope to recover more than half of their dues, the Economic Times or India reported. Last Friday, NCLT pronounced an order to admit Vadraj Cement, formerly known as ABG Cement, for corporate insolvency process. Adani Group, UltraTech Cement and JSW Cement may bid to acquire the debt-laden company, lenders said.

Thousands of real-estate projects in China are set to receive funding under Beijing’s new “whitelist” financing program, as policymakers intensify efforts to rescue the property sector from a deepening liquidity crisis, the Wall Street Journal reported. By the end of January, 170 cities in China’s 26 provinces had proposed their first batch of more than 3,000 favored projects to commercial banks, with a total 17.86 billion yuan ($2.48 billion) of loans already earmarked for 83 such projects, state media reported Sunday, citing official sources.

Hours before a court hearing that would decide the fate of Evergrande, its biggest bondholders faced a stark choice: split control of the sprawling property developer with more than a dozen Chinese banks or risk putting the company out of business for good, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. In the end, the bondholders decided to back a wind-down of Evergrande after it tried to push through a deal that would have given Chinese banks control of most of the developer, while imposing steep losses on foreign creditors like themselves.

When Kris Lin, who owns a lighting factory in China, received this year's first order from a close overseas client, he faced a distressing choice: take it at a loss, or tell workers not to come back after the Lunar New Year, Reuters reported. "It was impossible for me to lose this order," said Lin, who plans to re-start his factory in the eastern city of Taizhou at around half its capacity after the Feb. 10-17 holiday break. "I could have lost this client forever, and it would have endangered livelihoods for so many people.

Shares of South Korean financial stocks fell after an industry watchdog said banks and other firms in the sector will face “stern measures” if they charge excessive interest rates or engage in other misconduct, Bloomberg News reported. “Starting this year, financial companies evading responsibility by disregarding customers’ profit or not recognizing the losses that they have to will face stern measures and even risk getting kicked out from the market,” Lee Bokhyun, the Financial Supervisory Service’s governor, said in a prepared statement Monday to address its 2024 agenda.

Turkey’s central bank governor resigned late on Friday after less than a year in office, marking the latest turbulence in a major world economy that has suffered a series of economic crises in recent years, the Wall Street Journal reported. Turkey has had five central bank governors in the past five years under the leadership of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who pressured the bank into cutting interest rates in 2021 despite the country’s high inflation rate, triggering a currency crisis.

A U.S. unit of Indian education technology startup Byju's has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings in the U.S. court of Delaware, listing liabilities in the range of $1 billion to $10 billion, Reuters reported. Byju's Alpha unit listed its assets in the range of $500 million to $1 billion, according to a court filing, which showed estimated creditors in the range of 100 to 199. The ed-tech company, founded by Byju Raveendran, was one of India's hottest startups, valued at $22 billion in 2022, but has more recently seen lenders initiating bankruptcy proceedings against it.