In a world riven by disease and credit risk, traders are betting central bankers will pin down global borrowing costs for years to come -- regardless of the consequences, Bloomberg News reported. With banks awash with cash, money markets are signaling that unsecured lending rates will stay near historic lows across Europe and the U.S., even as rising corporate bankruptcies add pressure to bank balance sheets. Eurodollar futures, benchmarked to the three-month London interbank offered rate for dollars, suggest borrowing costs will barely budge until at least the first quarter of 2023.

Barclays set aside a higher than expected 1.6 billion pounds to cover a possible rise in loan losses in the second quarter and warned a grim outlook and low interest rates would hurt profits into 2021, Reuters reported. The COVID-19 pandemic has forced banks globally to set aside billions to cover bad loans and the British bank’s consumer business is under pressure from lower interest rates, smaller credit card balances and personal loan repayment holidays.

French consumer confidence declined in July, denting hopes that the country’s economy would bounce back rapidly from the coronavirus crisis, the Financial Times reported. After an initial rebound in June, the French statistics agency’s consumer sentiment index fell by two points to 94 in July, below the average of 99 forecast by economists in a poll by Reuters. A score below 100 indicates that consumer confidence is lower than its long-term average, whereas a score above that mark suggests that sentiment is above average.

Santander slumped to an €11.1bn loss in the second quarter after the coronavirus pandemic forced the eurozone’s largest retail bank to take large writedowns on the value of several of its businesses, led by its UK arm, the Financial Times reported. This marked the first loss in the Spanish lender’s 163-year history and came after it wrote off €6.1bn of goodwill left over from the purchases that created Santander UK in the 2000s.

More than a million Spanish workers lost their jobs in the second quarter of this year, as the impact of coronavirus-related lockdowns weighed on the country’s economy, the Financial Times reported. The drop in employed workers was the biggest on record, exceeding the number of people who fell out of work at the height of the financial crisis, according to data released on Tuesday by the country’s National Statistics Institute.

Virgin Money has reported a sharp increase in provisions for defaults on mortgage loans, as fears grow about the impact the coronavirus pandemic will have on UK unemployment levels, the Financial Times reported. The UK’s sixth-largest bank said it had yet to see many specific credit losses across its loanbook due to forbearance measures such as loan holidays and free overdrafts, but topped up its provisions for potential future losses by £42m to reflect a weaker economic outlook.

The European Central Bank has called on lenders to continue to freeze dividend payments until at least January and urged them to be “extremely moderate” when setting staff bonuses during the coronavirus pandemic, the Financial Times reported. The recommendations from the central bank are designed to help banks absorb losses and support lending throughout the crisis, which has left the eurozone economy facing a severe recession.

More than £50bn has been borrowed by British businesses struggling to survive the pandemic in government-backed debt, showing the continued need for support for companies even as lockdown measures are eased, the Financial Times reported. The Treasury said on Tuesday that close to 1.2m businesses had taken bank bailout loans and other debt that were partly or fully guaranteed by the government.

U.K. discount retailer Matalan will file for Chapter 15 court protection in the U.S. on Wednesday as part of broader measures to buttress its balance sheet in the aftermath of pandemic-inflicted closures, Bloomberg News reported. The company will seek “certain interim relief” under Chapter 15 and recognition for its debt restructuring in the U.K., according to a statement Tuesday. Chapter 15 of U.S. bankruptcy law shields foreign companies from lawsuits by U.S. creditors while they reorganize in another country. The retailer used a U.K. court procedure known as a scheme of arrangement.

A property investor is suing developer Greg Kavanagh for €6.4 million over alleged default on a debt related to loans to his company and personal guarantees, The Irish Times reoprted. Anne O’Neill, Mount Pleasant Square, Dublin, is seeking summary judgment for the money against Mr Kavanagh, of Shaw’s Lane, Bath Avenue, Dublin. She claims he failed to meet a demand for repayment issued last May and has brought High Court proceedings.