Top Chinese banks are rushing to ensure they can maintain business ties with Russian clients without running afoul of a barrage of Western sanctions, people with knowledge of the matter told Reuters. Western nations are tightening an economic noose around Russia following its invasion of Ukraine, shutting its banks from the SWIFT global financial network and pushing global firms to dump billions in investment.

The People’s Bank of China said it expects the number of high-risk banks to continue to decline in coming years, vowing to persist with its campaign to curb financial risks in the economy, Bloomberg News reported. By 2025, the number of lenders in the “high-risk” category in the PBOC’s quarterly reviews will likely drop below 200 from 316 in the fourth quarter of 2021, the central bank said in a statement Thursday. At the peak in the third quarter of 2019, there were 649 banks listed in the category, according to the statement.

After more than 10 dollar-debt defaults by property developers over the past year, many investors have come to the conclusion that trust is broken in the $200 billion market for high-yield bonds of Chinese companies, the Wall Street Journal reported. Since last summer, when the financial troubles of China Evergrande Group sparked a selloff in the giant property company’s bonds and those of its peers, the market has remained deeply distressed, with no end in sight to the malaise.

China’s strategic partnership with Russia has the potential to be a lifeline for a Russian economy foundering under crippling Western sanctions, but Beijing appears to be holding back over practical constraints and fears of secondary sanctions on Chinese institutions, the Washington Post reported.

The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) has allowed withdrawal of insolvency proceedings against real estate development firm Nirmal Lifestyle and has also lifted a moratorium on the company. Nirmal Lifestyle has entered into a separate settlement agreement with the financial creditor, the Economic Times of India reported.

The insolvency case of Guo Wengui, the exiled Chinese businessman, got off to raucous start Tuesday when a longstanding creditor called the move “astonishing” and signaled it would wage an aggressive fight in bankruptcy court, Bloomberg News reported. Guo, a former partner of Trump political strategist Steve Bannon, filed for bankruptcy last month after moving a yacht from New York waters, a shift that would keep it out of the reach of creditors, and then facing a $134 million penalty for taking that step.

To most in corporate India, a ‘connected entity’ and ‘related party’ mean the same --- arguing over the difference is quibbling over semantics. But, is it? A confidential KPMG forensic report has run into legal ambiguity over the terms while making a litany of allegations on the lending practices of two Kolkata-based Srei companies which are categorized as systemically important non-banking finance companies in the country, the Economic Times of India reported.

A fugitive Malaysian financier said he won support from allies of former U.S. President Donald Trump for a possible settlement of a probe into the looting of funds from the 1MDB sovereign wealth fund, a former Goldman Sachs banker testified on Tuesday, Reuters reported. Tim Leissner offered a glimpse of what he had heard from financier Jho Low about the attempted deal, on the sixth day of his testimony at the trial of Roger Ng, another former Goldman banker. Ng, 49, has pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiring to launder money and violate an anti-bribery law.

Future Retail Ltd, India's second-largest retailer, suspended most of its online and offline operations as stores remained shut on Sunday, after rival Reliance bid to take over its flagship supermarkets for missed lease payments, Reuters reported. Reliance Industries Ltd will rebrand the Future stores after the company failed to make payments for them to Reliance, sources told Reuters on Saturday, closing most outlets of the popular Big Bazaar chain.

A widely-anticipated push by China’s government to boost construction in order to stabilize growth in the world’s second-largest economy has yet to materialize, a blow to hopes that Chinese stimulus would lift global growth early on this year, Bloomberg News reported. The Communist Party has made its stimulus goals clear in recent months, pledging to “front-load” pro-growth policies in 2022, pushing early sales of bonds to fund investment and easing curbs on financing for the property sector.