Ulster Bank’s chief executive said there will be a fresh round of jobs cuts at the group as it seeks to rein in costs as ultra-low central bank interest rates squeeze lending margins, The Irish Times reported. “I think we all thought that by now we were going to be in a position where interest rates were rising, but, from the latest coming out of the ECB, it looks like it could be four years,” Jane Howard told The Irish Times in her first profile interview since taking over the helm of the bank last September. “It is going to be a challenge to generate new income.

Tensions between the European Central Bank and Germany have again exploded into public view after the resignation of Sabine Lautenschläger, who represented the eurozone’s biggest economy on the central bank’s executive board, the Financial Times reported. Ms Lautenschläger — who is leaving weeks after publicly opposing further easing of super-loose monetary policy by the ECB — is the latest of a string of German representatives to quit the central bank after failing to stop the flow of cheap money.

The French government said it would reduce taxes on individuals and businesses by €10.2 billion as President Emmanuel Macron seeks to breathe new life into his drive to overhaul France’s economy and stave off a revival of the yellow-vest protests that nearly doomed his agenda, The Wall Street Journal reported. In presenting its 2020 budget on Thursday, the government said it planned to lower taxes on households by €9.3 billion and provide companies with tax relief through a lower rate. The measures, worth a total of $11.1 billion, illustrate the delicate balancing act Mr.

Pearson warned that a 20 per cent drop in demand for US college textbooks would hit its profit and jeopardise a return to sales growth next year, triggering an 18 per cent share price fall, The Irish Times reported. In an echo of Pearson’s past profit warnings, the world’s biggest education company said on Thursday that, while 75 per cent of its sales continued to grow, US higher education courseware revenue was set to fall as much as 12 per cent in 2019.

Mario Draghi made a special plea to the other members of the European Central Bank’s governing council, seated around a ring-shaped table on the 41st floor of its Frankfurt headquarters, as he wrapped up his penultimate meeting as its president, the Financial Times reported. The 72-year-old Italian urged them not to give off-the-record briefings to the media criticising the ambitious monetary stimulus package they had just decided upon.

Aer Lingus owner IAG warned that challenges facing the European airline industry are set to continue into 2020 after cutting profit guidance for this year. Earnings will be about 6 per cent lower than forecast in the wake of strikes at British Airways, its biggest unit, and depressed ticket prices at low-cost operations Vueling and Level, The Irish Times reported. IAG lowered capacity growth in the final quarter and will provide details in November of a decrease next year, chief executive Willie Walsh said on a call with analysts on Thursday.

Santander has taken a €1.5bn writedown on the value of its UK business, blaming new regulations and the expected economic fallout from Brexit, the Financial Times reported. The move highlights the challenges facing the UK’s fifth-largest bank, which is grappling with sluggish growth and rising competition while its Spanish owner looks to cut costs and increase investment in other parts of its empire. Santander, the eurozone’s largest retail bank, announced the news late on Tuesday after markets closed in Mexico, where the group has a secondary listing.

Ratings agency Standard & Poor’s has cut its credit rating on storied carmaker Aston Martin Lagonda Holdings deeper into junk territory on Wednesday amid concerns over the UK’s exit from the European Union and threat of U.S. tariffs, Reuters reported. The ratings agency trimmed its rating by one notch to ‘CCC+’, which reflects substantial risks and takes it close to default territory after a faster-than-expected cash burn this year. The outlook is negative.

Deutsche Bank AG is reviving a business it shut down in 2014, even as it pushes on with a company-wide strategic overhaul that’s seen it shed staff and sell off assets, Bloomberg News reported. The German lender has resumed trading credit-default swaps -- derivatives used by traders to insure debt against the risk of default -- for investment-grade European companies, according to a spokeswoman. The bank also plans to extend the activity to cover high yield as well as banks and insurers, she said.

In a related story, Reuters reported that Thomas Cook’s Polish business Neckermann Polska said on Wednesday it was insolvent as the effects of the demise of the world’s oldest travel firm spread to central Europe, leaving around 3,600 Polish tourists stuck abroad. Thomas Cook, which started life in 1841 running local rail excursions and grew to pioneer package holidays, collapsed early on Monday stranding hundreds of thousands of holidaymakers.