The Australian arm of Binance, the world's largest crypto-currency exchange, on Thursday said some customers there will be unable to deposit or withdraw money after a third-party service provider cut off its service, Reuters reported. Binance said on social media that users would be unable to make Australian dollar deposits by bank transfer with immediate effect after payments provider Cuscal cut access. Withdrawals would also be cut off, it said, without detailing when.

Australia employment unexpectedly dipped in April after two months of outsized gains, and the jobless rate also ticked up in a sign the red-hot labour market might be cooling, bolstering the case for a pause in interest rate hikes next month, Reuters reported. Figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics released on Thursday showed net employment fell by 4,300 in April from March, when it rebounded by a revised 61,100. Market forecasts had been for a rise of 25,000.

The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) has set aside the insolvency proceedings against leading bulk tea producer McLeod Russel following a settlement between the promoter and IL&FS Infrastructure Debt Fund, the Economic Times of India reported. A supplementary affidavit was filed before NCLAT by the appellant (Aditya Khaitan), whereby an agreement between the parties dated May 5, 2023 was brought on record.

China’s post-Covid growth spurt is sputtering and its youth unemployment rate hit a record high, signaling trouble for a recovery that was expected to boost global growth, the Wall Street Journal reported. A bundle of economic indicators for April, including retail sales, factory production and fixed-asset investment, fell short of economists’ expectations, according to data released Tuesday by China’s National Bureau of Statistics. Investment in the country’s property sector also dropped in the first four months of the year.

The Philippines central bank will likely leave its key interest rate unchanged at 6.25% on Thursday, and keep it there for the rest of 2023, marking an end to a year-long tightening cycle as inflation shows signs of cooling, a Reuters poll found. Although annual inflation slowed to 6.6% in April from a peak of 8.7% in January, it remained well above the central bank's target range of 2-4%, suggesting the cumulative rate hikes of 425 basis points are yet to have an impact.

Global investors seeking to trade China’s reopening will have a new strategic tool from Monday: onshore interest-rate swaps that had an annual turnover of $3 trillion last year, Bloomberg News reported. The so-called Swap Connect program between mainland China and Hong Kong provides overseas funds with easier access to the derivatives that will help hedge their exposure to the world’s second-biggest bond market. The channel also enables them to bet on key money-market rates that are sensitive to China’s monetary policy.

China’s two leading cross-border online brokerages said they will remove their trading platforms from app stores in mainland China this week as Beijing takes a harder stance on capital flows out of the country, Bloomberg News reported. Futu Holdings Ltd. and Up Fintech Holding Ltd., also known as Tiger Brokers, said Tuesday that the move was to comply with the Chinese securities regulator’s requirements on cross-border brokerage businesses. Futu’s app Futubull will be removed Friday, and Tiger Brokers’ app will be taken off on Thursday.

China's April industrial output and retail sales growth undershot forecasts, suggesting the economy lost momentum at the beginning of the second quarter and intensifying pressure on policymakers to shore up a wobbly post-COVID recovery, Reuters reported. Tuesday's batch of data, which also showed a further decline in property investment, adds to concerns about the outlook for the world's second-biggest economy as both its domestic and export engines of growth remain underpowered.

Turkey’s markets slid as the nation heads for a runoff election, with stronger-than-expected support for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan wrong footing investors who were betting on a quick end to his unconventional economic policies, Bloomberg News reported. The benchmark stock index, the BIST-100, closed 6.1% lower after earlier falling as much as 6.7%, triggering a circuit breaker. Turkey’s dollar bonds were the biggest losers in emerging markets and the cost of protecting the debt against default jumped.

China's central bank rolled over maturing medium-term policy loans while keeping the interest rate unchanged on Monday, as expected, but markets expect monetary easing may be inevitable in the coming months to support the economic recovery, Reuters reported. The People's Bank of China (PBOC) said it was keeping the rate on 125 billion yuan ($18.08 billion) worth of one-year medium-term lending facility (MLF) loans to some financial institutions unchanged at 2.75% from the previous operation.