German banks saw a jump in customers struggling to pay back commercial property loans in the fourth quarter, as the sector faces higher interest rates and shifts in consumer behavior exacerbated by the pandemic, Bloomberg News reported. Banks in the country saw their non-performing commercial real estate loans swell to €13.6 billion ($14.8 billion) at the end of December from €9.7 billion three months earlier, according to the European Banking Authority.

The holding company of Thames Water Ltd. defaulted on some of its debt after failing to make an interest payment, in the latest sign of the deepening crisis at the UK’s largest water utility, Bloomberg News reported. Kemble Water Finance Limited has sent a formal notice of default to the holders of its £400 million ($505 million) bonds due May 2026 as it didn’t pay interest due Tuesday, according to a statement. The parent company now needs to start talks with creditors to avoid a messy restructuring that could wipe out Thames Water shareholders.

A London law firm has lodged a bid to wind up non-league Southend United, BBC.com reported. Stewarts Law's winding-up petition has been published on an official public record. A judge in the Insolvency and Companies Court in London is due consider its claim on 17 April. Stewarts' petition has appeared on The Gazette website - an official public record. A notice says the law firm has taken action under the 1986 Insolvency Act and is "claiming to be a creditor" of Southend United Football Club Ltd.

The number of insolvent Romanian companies increased by 13.5% year-on-year to 1,120 in the first two months of 2024, the country's trade registry office, ONRC said, SeeNews.com reported. Despite falling by 8.8% on the year to 207 in January-February, the highest number of insolvent companies and legal entities was registered in Bucharest, ONRC said in a data release on Wednesday.

Dealing with the extensive loan guarantees Italy provided to help businesses through the COVID-19 pandemic and energy crisis is proving complex, hampering efforts to fix some companies' debt problems, restructuring experts said, Reuters reported. Under successive emergency measures since 2020, Italy has extended guarantees on 189 billion euros ($205 billion) of bank loans.

Switzerland is accelerating efforts to reform its banking regulations a year after the collapse of Credit Suisse — and handing more power to those who will enforce them, Bloomberg News reported. The government is due to unveil long-awaited proposals for legislation in the coming days that are likely to touch on all of the main pillars of bank oversight, from capital and liquidity rules to controls on governance. UBS Group AG — the country's sole remaining globally-systemic bank that’s now over twice the size of the domestic economy — is in for heightened scrutiny.

Telecom Italia SpA expects a windfall of about €1 billion ($1.1 billion) from the Italian government after a Rome appeals court ruled in favor of the one-time monopolist in a legal case dating back to the late 1990s, Bloomberg News reported. The state has been ordered to pay back about €530 million plus interest to the phone carrier for licensing fees the company paid which were not actually due, according to a copy of the ruling seen by Bloomberg.

A consortium aiming to take control of non-league Southend United has warned the club could be embroiled in another court fight, BBC.com reported. The buyers said that a creditor was petitioning for the club to be wound up and a further court hearing was "likely". In a statement, the group of investors also said the takeover had taken "longer than any party expected". The club had debts which previously reached £2.5m, but the proposed sale to Australian businessman Justin Rees and other investors was announced in October.

The eurozone’s annual rate of inflation fell for the third straight month in March, a surprise that makes it more likely that the European Central Bank will cut its key interest rate in June, the Wall Street Journal reported. Consumer prices were 2.4% higher than a year earlier, easing from February’s annual inflation rate, according to figures released by the European Union’s statistics agency on Wednesday. Core inflation—a measure that strips out volatile energy and food prices—also came in below economists’ expectations, reaching the lowest level in more than two years.

Britain's financial regulators on Wednesday launched a public consultation on their new "sandbox" for trading digital securities in "real world situations" to keep up with rapid advances in technology, Reuters reported. A "sandbox" allows the testing of new services in the market with real customers, but within a controlled regulatory environment.