Britain dodged a recession last year despite a historic energy price shock and an investor revolt that forced out the prime minister. Recent data have raised questions about whether it will be so lucky this time around, Bloomberg News reported. Surveys of purchasing managers and retailers both point toward a sudden slowdown in recent weeks. More companies are taking steps to address financial distress. Even the jobs market, which remained strong through the pandemic, is showing signs of weakening.

Sweden’s housing starts extended a plunge into the second quarter as lower home prices and rising construction costs put the brakes on building activity, Bloomberg News reported. Construction started on about 14,550 new homes in the first half of the year, which represents a 57% decline from the year-ago period, Statistics Sweden said on Thursday. Housing starts have been on a downward trajectory since last year, hit by one of the world’s biggest declines in residential property prices that’s in recent months leveled off.

Switzerland's financial regulator looked into the risk of money laundering at 30 banks this spring, FINMA said in an analysis published on Thursday, after identifying shortcomings in the area, Reuters reported. "In particular, an adequate definition of the money laundering risk tolerance, which forms the limiting framework of a robust risk analysis through set limits, was lacking in some cases," FINMA said. Read more.

German business activity contracted at the fastest pace for more than three years in August, a preliminary survey showed on Wednesday, Reuters reported. The HCOB German Flash Composite Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI), compiled by S&P Global, fell to 44.7 from July's 48.5, hitting its lowest since May 2020 and confounding analysts' expectations for a reading of 48.3. The indicator was below the 50 level denoting growth in activity for the second consecutive month.

The Czech government will scale back a planned loan from the European Union's post-COVID recovery fund to 19.4 billion crowns (805.75 million euros), from the initially planned 137 billion crowns, Industry Minister Jozef Sikela said on Wednesday, Reuters reported. The reductions were made after consultations with the European Commission, which concluded some of the funding Czechia needs could come from other channels, Sikela said.

Russian authorities are working on a draft presidential decree to give the country's retail investors a way to unblock their frozen assets held in overseas accounts and sell them to foreign parties, the central bank said on Wednesday, Reuters reported. International sanctions against Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine have blocked many Russian investors' access to securities held in jurisdictions outside the country, while Russian countermeasures have frozen Western funds within.

Binance is helping Russians move money abroad, potentially adding to its sprawling legal problems in the U.S., the Wall Street Journal reported. The cryptocurrency giant, led by founder Changpeng Zhao, joined many other major international companies early last year in scaling back its business in Russia, one of its largest markets by trading volume at the time. After Russia invaded Ukraine, Binance said it had stopped working there and was implementing Western sanctions requirements. It restricted trading on its platform in Russia.

When United Kingdom housebuilder Crest Nicholson Holdings Plc reported its first-half results in June, it expected full-year profit to meet expectations of just under £75 million (£73.7 million to be exact). This morning it slashed that outlook to “around £50 million.” It mostly comes back to the ongoing stand-off between buyers and sellers in the U.K. housing market. Mortgages are much more expensive than they were 18 months ago. Banks are happy enough to lend — keen, even, as Marcus points out.

The number of companies filing for bankruptcy in Finland rose to the highest in 26 years last month as the slowdown in the Nordic economy puts a damper on business activity, Bloomberg News reported. Finland recorded the highest number of July bankruptcies since 1997, with 224 companies becoming insolvent, Statistics Finland said on Monday. Construction industry and other service businesses had the most failed companies, it said.

London-based digital-first healthcare platform Babylon Health has filed for chapter 7 bankruptcy in the United States for two subsidiaries — Babylon Healthcare and Babylon Inc. — as it shuts down core U.S. operations, according to documents filed on Aug. 9 in a Delaware bankruptcy court, Becker's Hospital Review reported. The filing comes shortly after a planned combination Babylon's core operating subsidiaries with MindMaze, digital neurotherapy company, collapsed.