The curtain has come down on several stores of British shoe brand Clarks. The stores in Amsterdam (two), Breda, The Hague, Eindhoven, Haarlem, Leidschendam, Maastricht, Rotterdam and Utrecht were declared bankrupt on January 9, according to the public insolvency register, FashionUnited.uk reported. G.A. De Wit has been appointed receiver. FashionUnited sought contact with the trustee, but is still waiting for a response.

Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey said the integration of cryptocurrencies into the global financial system has stalled as the coins struggle to win over regulators and the public, Bloomberg News reported. “My own sense is that it’s not taking off as what I might call a core financial service,” Bailey told the UK Parliament’s Treasury Committee on Wednesday.

Poland’s top constitutional court, dominated by judges appointed by the former ruling nationalist, quashed plans by Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s government to try the central bank governor in the latest blow to the new pro-European administration, Bloomberg News reported. Lawmakers can’t suspend Governor Adam Glapinski under parliament’s current rules and would need to pass a law requiring a three-fifths majority for a motion to pass, the same threshold as for cabinet members, Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal ruled on Thursday.

The World Bank's private investment arm has mobilised nearly $1 billion to rebuild Ukraine's private sector and is shifting its broader investment focus towards equity, its managing director told Reuters. Around $620 million of the funds mobilised for Ukraine - part of a $2 billion package announced in December 2022 - are from the investment arm's own balance sheet and another $360 million from external financing, said Makhtar Diop, managing director of the International Finance Corp (IFC). But the path ahead is not without its challenges.

Swedish streaming service Viaplay Group AB has stepped back from the brink of bankruptcy after getting approval for a rescue plan that will leave existing shareholders holding stock that is near worthless, Bloomberg News reported. Viaplay, which owns rights to sports broadcasting in the Nordic region, Netherlands and the Baltics, will see Vivendi SE-owned Canal+ and Czech investment firm PPF Group take a combined 58.6% stake in the group as part of the recapitalization.

The European Central Bank is set to cut interest rates at some point in 2024, Governing Council member Francois Villeroy de Galhau reaffirmed, without giving more specific guidance on how soon that could be, Bloomberg News reported. Last year’s rapid monetary-policy tightening has helped curb underlying inflation, Villeroy told representatives of France’s financial sector in a traditional New Year address. But he said officials should maintain vigilance and not commit to a specific date. “Our decisions will not be guided by a calendar, but by data,” Villeroy said Tuesday.

The Swiss central bank won’t pay out any dividend for 2023 after a second straight year of losses, having twice hiked interest rates to combat inflation, the Wall Street Journal reported. The Swiss National Bank’s provisional net loss of around 3 billion Swiss francs ($3.5 billion) was down to a loss on its Swiss franc positions, totaling around 8.5 billion Swiss francs, it said Tuesday. The bank conversely made a profit on its foreign-currency positions and gold holdings.

Greek industrial output rose 3.1% in November compared to the same month a year earlier, after a downwardly revised 10.2% increase in October, data from statistics service ELSTAT showed on Wednesday, Reuters reported. A breakdown of index components showed manufacturing production rose 2.8% from the same month in 2022. Electricity output was up by 4.0% year-on-year, and mining production was up by 5.9%. Read more.

Germany’s Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof has become the latest asset caught up in the bankruptcy spiral of Rene Benko’s Signa property and retail empire, Bloomberg News reported. The department store chain filed for insolvency at the Essen district court on Tuesday — the third such filing in less than four years for the embattled retailer. Stefan Denkhaus, named Galeria’s interim administrator, said in a statement that the move was the only way the company could “free itself” from Signa’s grip.

The U.K. government is pressuring councils to run down their reserves to help stave off a financial crisis beginning to rip through the country’s town halls, Bloomberg News reported. Simon Hoare, minister for local government, urged local authorities to tap into cash they set aside for emergencies to cover day-to-day services, noting many of them increased their rainy-day funds during the pandemic. However, the call was dubbed “ridiculous” by the Labour opposition and met with skepticism by councils.