The Catholic church insurer wants to establish a scheme that would stave off its own insolvency by paying church bodies only a fraction of the money owed to abuse survivors at rates to be determined by the scandal-plagued consultancy PwC, documents show, the Guardian reported. Catholic Church Insurance is facing significant financial turmoil due to the rising volume of abuse claims, estimating it has $381m in liabilities relating to professional standards payouts to various church entities, including dioceses and church-aligned charities.

Core consumer inflation in Japan's capital Tokyo, considered a leading indicator of nationwide trends, unexpectedly accelerated in October, a sign of broadening price pressures that may keep alive expectations of near-term end to ultra-low interest rates, Reuters reported. The data reinforces expectations the Bank of Japan (BOJ) will revise up its inflation forecasts when it produces fresh quarterly projections at next week's policy meeting.

With China’s property bust threatening to sink the country’s economic recovery, Xi Jinping is looking for someone to blame, the Wall Street Journal reported. After putting the billionaire founder of Evergrande, a heavily indebted property firm, under investigation for possible crimes, Beijing is expanding its probes to include bankers and financial institutions that facilitated developers’ risky behavior. Among those under scrutiny: a former head of Bank of China, one of the country’s biggest lenders.

Turkey’s central bank delivered another sizable interest-rate increase on Thursday and signaled it could tighten policy further to rein in inflation that’s on track to end this year near 70%, Bloomberg News reported. The Monetary Policy Committee, led by Governor Hafize Gaye Erkan, lifted its benchmark rate to 35% from 30%, in line with most forecasts. Turkish bank stocks rose as much as 3% after the decision before paring gains as of 3:52 p.m. local time. The lira was little changed.

Chinese developer Country Garden Holdings Co. was deemed to be in default on a dollar bond for the first time ever, underscoring its fall into distress amid a broader property debt crisis that’s shaken the world’s second-biggest economy, Bloomberg News reported. Country Garden’s failure to pay interest on the note within a grace period that ended last week “constitutes an event of default,” according to a notice to holders from trustee Citicorp International Ltd. seen by Bloomberg News.

China's new sovereign bonds will help bolster the economic recovery, China's vice finance minister Zhu Zhongming said on Wednesday, as the government's stepped-up fiscal stimulus sharply raises its budget deficit, Reuters reported. China's top parliament body has approved a 1 trillion yuan ($137 billion) in sovereign bond issuance to help rebuild areas hit by this year's floods and improve urban infrastructure to cope with future disasters, state media said on Tuesday.

Hui Ka Yan has already lost his freedom. Now, China Evergrande Group’s founder is no longer a billionaire. Hui’s net worth has fallen to $979 million, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, with shares of his debt-laden real estate firm trading at just HK$0.24 (3 cents) each. Shares of China Evergrande have dropped 86% since its trading resumption in late August.

China's top parliament body has approved a 1 trillion yuan ($137 billion) sovereign bond issue and passed a bill to allow local governments to frontload part of their 2024 bond quotas, state media said on Tuesday, in a move to support the economy, Reuters reported. Funds raised from the new sovereign bonds will support the rebuilding of disaster-hit areas in the country and improve urban drainage prevention infrastructure to boost China's ability to withstand natural disasters, state news agency Xinhua said.

International companies began trickling out of Hong Kong a few years back, uneasy about the financial hub’s tightening ties to mainland China. That first smattering of departures is now turning into a broad retreat involving banks, investment firms and technology companies, the Wall Street Journal reported. The number of U.S. companies operating in the city has fallen for four years in a row, by Hong Kong’s count, hitting 1,258 in June 2022, the fewest since 2004.

Australia’s central bank “will not hesitate” to raise interest rates further if there’s a material upgrade to its inflation outlook, new Governor Michele Bullock said, in her strongest reference yet to the threat of renewed price pressures, Bloomberg News reported. “Our focus remains on bringing inflation back to target within a reasonable timeframe, while keeping employment growing,” Bullock said in a speech Tuesday. The RBA board meets on Nov. 7 to decide policy, with money markets seeing just under a 40% chance of a hike to take the cash rate to 4.35%.