Investment funds and other non-bank financial institutions face their first 'stress test' next year to apply lessons from the near-meltdown in Britain's pension fund sector, the Bank of England (BoE) said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. The BoE had to step in from September to buy 19.3 billion pounds ($23.75 billion) of government bonds to stabilise markets after turmoil caused by the fiscal plans of Liz Truss's short-lived government. Liability-driven investment (LDI) funds, used by pension funds to ensure their long-term payouts, struggled to meet collateral calls as bond prices tumbled.

Britain’s economy shrank in the three months through October, confirming the toll that rampant inflation and rising interest rates are having on business and industry, the Associated Press reported. Gross domestic product, the broadest measure of economic activity, fell by 0.3% in the period when compared with the three months through July, the Office for National Statistics said Monday.

Midlands property developer Tony Diskin has secured Irish High Court approval to escape almost €25 million in Celtic Tiger-era debts from his property development business, the Irish Times reported. Mr. Justice Alexander Owens granted Mr. Diskin a personal insolvency arrangement (PIA) – a mechanism that allows individuals to escape significant bank and other debts – which will see him return to solvency with payment of a lump sum of €30,000. Some €25,000 of this will go towards repaying a fraction of his €24.9 million in debts.

The number of bankruptcies in the Netherlands has risen for the third month in a row. According to Statistics Netherlands (CBS), 224 companies and institutions, including one-person businesses, went bankrupt in November. That is seven more than in October, the NL Times reported. According to CBS, this was the highest number of bankruptcies in over two years, though it is still lower than before the coronavirus pandemic. The number of bankruptcies is so low partly due to the Cabinet’s coronavirus support, which kept even fundamentally unhealthy companies afloat.

Former Wirecard boss Markus Braun's lawyers accused prosecutors of botching Germany's biggest post-war fraud trial at the start of his defence on Monday and alleged that their key witness was in fact the main perpetrator, Reuters reported. Braun, 53, and two other ex-Wirecard managers Oliver Bellenhaus and Stephan von Erffa are on trial on charges including market manipulation and fraud at the defunct payments company and could face up to 15 years in prison if convicted.

Russian commercial bank Uralsib said on Monday it had completed the acquisition of a portfolio of consumer loans from Citigroup Inc's Russian unit, as the major U.S. lender reduces its exposure to Russia on the way to a full exit from the country, Reuters reported. Neither bank has disclosed financial details of the deal. "The acquired portfolio includes unsecured consumer loans, which going forward will be serviced by Uralsib Bank from the moment of purchase," Uralsib said in a statement.

Norway will not have to ration power supplies this winter or in the coming spring even in the event of an extended cold period and wider energy challenges in the Nordic region, the country's energy regulator NVE said on Monday, Reuters reported. "Our analyses show that even with significant operational challenges in the Nordics, we will not end up in a rationing situation this winter," NVE director Kjetil Lund said in a statement.

Germany faces a paradox: After years of record immigration that has seen the equivalent of the population of a large city arrive in the country every year, one in six people in Germany was now born overseas, compared with one in seven in the U.S., the Wall Street Journal reported. But unlike the U.S., Germany is failing to find work for the newcomers despite a worsening labor shortage that is stifling economic growth. Europe’s largest economy will in addition need to fill about seven million jobs by 2035 as older workers retire, economists estimate.

The British government said Friday it would ease regulatory rules on banks, insurers and investors to bolster London’s status as a global financial hub after its allure was dented by Britain’s departure from the European Union, the Wall Street Journal reported. The U.K. presented a 30 point-plan called the “Edinburgh reforms” that the government hailed as a regulatory fine-tuning to boost the British economy, which has suffered a severe slowdown in recent years and is entering a recession.