Brussels said it has received assurances from the Italian government that it will work to bring down the country’s high level of public debt, in the latest step by Rome to ease EU concerns about its spending plans, the Financial Times reported.

Brussels is pressing for sovereign debt from across the eurozone to be bundled into a new financial instrument and sold to investors as part of a proposal to strengthen the single currency area, the Financial Times reported. A European Commission paper on the future of the euro, seen by the Financial Times, advocates the launching of a market of “sovereign bond-backed securities” — packaging different countries’ national debt into a new asset.

Brussels has warned Italy to cut its record public debt by April to avoid breaching EU budget rules, the Financial Times reported. The European Commission said on Wednesday that Italy’s debt represented “a major source of vulnerability” as it urged Rome to meet its commitments to adopt pension reforms and other “structural measures” worth 0.2 per cent of gross domestic product. Valdis Dombrovskis, vice-president of the commission in charge of eurozone issues, said “as of today there would be a case to open an excessive deficit procedure for Italy”.

Belgian financial services group KBC has cut its forecast for loan-loss provisions in Ireland and announced a €39.5 million second-quarter net profit for its Irish arm, the Ifish Times reported. KBC Bank Ireland, which has €14 billion of Irish loans still outstanding, slashed its full-year Irish loan-loss provisions to a range of zero to €40 million, from a previous guidance of between €50 million to €100 million. The bank said first-half profits reached €73.7 million.

A Belgian magistrate judge is investigating whether the Swiss bank UBS engaged in fraud, money laundering and other crimes in an effort to help wealthy individuals avoid taxes, the Brussels prosecutor’s office said on Friday, the International New York Times DealBook blog reported. UBS is suspected of having directly approached Belgian customers, without going through its Belgian subsidiary, to encourage clients to engage in transactions meant to evade taxes. UBS acknowledged the inquiry, but it said little more.

Athens has “annoyed” and “frustrated” its eurozone partners with combative negotiating tactics, said Belgium’s finance minister, who warned Greece that the single currency could safely ride out its exit, the Financial Times reported. Johan Van Overtveldt, an economist who took charge of the finance ministry in the eurozone’s sixth-largest economy in October, said the currency bloc had sufficient safeguards in place to endure a Greek departure, adding he believed other ministers shared this view.

The Swiss private banking arm of HSBC has been charged by Belgian authorities with assisting wealthy individuals to avoid paying taxes on several billion dollars in assets, the International New York Times DealBook blog reported. A Belgian investigating magistrate judge has charged the unit, HSBC Private Bank (Suisse), with serious and organized tax fraud, money laundering and unlawful exercise of the profession of financial intermediary, according to a statement by the Brussels prosecutor’s office. The activity under scrutiny occurred from 2003 to the present, prosecutors said.

Belgian law firm Deminor said it had been contacted by 15 to 20 investment firms considering legal action over the failure of OW Bunker, the world's largest shipping firm which filed for bankruptcy a week ago, Reuters reported. Deminor, which specialises in representing institutional investors in class actions against public listed companies, did not say on Friday which investors had contacted it and gave no further detail on possible actions over the company's collapse. OW Bunker, Denmark's the third-largest company by revenue, said on Nov.

Italy and France backed away from a clash with the European Commission over their 2015 budgets on Monday by pledging extra measures to cut their deficits, The Wall Street Journal reported. The move comes after the commission, the European Union’s executive arm, warned Rome and Paris last week that their budget plans would violate its fiscal rules.

Belgian financial institution KBC appeared to rule itself out yesterday from any interest in a link-up with Ulster Bank in the Republic as part of the strategic review being carried out by that bank’s parent company, Royal Bank of Scotland, the Irish Times reported. In a presentation to investors, KBC made clear that it plans to plough an independent furrow in Ireland until it is back in profit here in 2016. “For Ireland, KBC’s first priority is to become profitable from 2016 onwards.