The number of personal insolvencies recorded in England and Wales fell to a three-year low in 2020, the Evening Express reported. The Insolvency Service said that there were 111,424 individual insolvencies in 2020 – a total which was down by 9% on 2019. It marked the lowest annual figure since 98,897 personal insolvencies were recorded in 2017. The service said the fall in cases was driven by low volumes of bankruptcies and debt relief orders (DROs), which both decreased by 25% from the previous year.

The European Central Bank is worried lenders in the eurozone aren’t properly evaluating the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the financial health of borrowers, a problem that could result in a sudden cascade of defaults, the Wall Street Journal reported. Andrea Enria, head of banking supervision at the ECB, said banks are setting aside less money to cover for loan losses than peers in other countries, including the U.S. He added that the provisions are below levels reached during the financial crisis and short of the levels models suggest are required.

Norwegian Air Shuttle ASA aims to exit Irish insolvency proceedings in April as the carrier jettisons its low-cost long haul business to focus on flying in the Nordics, Bloomberg News reported. The airline expects to raise as much as 5 billion kroner ($580 million) in capital, including up to 2.5 billion kroner from existing creditors through a hybrid debt instrument, according to an investor presentation Wednesday. Secured creditors that contribute to the equity raise will boost their holdings, the company said.

Government debt around the world shot up last year to approach levels last seen in the aftermath of World War II, as nations stepped up spending to fight the Covid-19 pandemic and its economic fallout, the International Monetary Fund said yesterday, the Wall Street Journal reported. Public debt as a share of global gross domestic product surged to 98% by the end of December from 84% at the end of 2019, before the pandemic struck, the IMF said in an update to its semiannual Fiscal Monitor report.

Germany’s financial watchdog has reported one of its employees to state prosecutors on suspicion of insider trading linked to Wirecard, shortly before the payment firm’s spectacular collapse, Reuters reported. BaFin’s admission is a fresh indictment of Germany’s supervision of a company that began by processing payments for gambling and pornography before becoming a star of ‘fintech’ - financial technology - and finally Germany’s biggest fraud case.

Store and office vacancies are surging across the U.K. as the pandemic hammers retailers and workers stay at home, Bloomberg News reported. The amount of empty space in the U.K.’s malls and stores is rising at the fastest pace since at least 1999, when records began, according to a survey of brokers conducted by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. The number of brokers reporting higher office vacancy rates was the highest since the depths of the last financial crisis. U.K.

Bankruptcies fell 40 percent last year in France and Britain, and were down 25 percent on average in the European Union, the New York Times reported. By contrast, chapter 11 bankruptcy filings in the U.S. rose in the third quarter to the highest level since the 2010 financial crisis, a trend that is expected to continue in 2021, according to an index compiled by the U.S. law firm Polsinelli. The difference is the enormous sums European countries are spending to keep businesses afloat. But some worry they’ve gone too far; bankruptcies are plunging to levels not seen in decades.

The European Union granted equivalence to a set of U.S. clearinghouses, easing their access to its financial markets, Bloomberg News reported. The decision, which allows U.S. central counterparties to provide clearing services in the European Union, is conditional and applies to U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission-regulated firms, according to a statement Wednesday. Clearinghouses stand between the two sides of a derivatives trade and hold collateral, also known as margin, from both in case a member defaults.