“Patient, persistent and prudent,” have become Mario Draghi’s watchwords for the normalisation of eurozone monetary policy. The European Central Bank president repeated his mantra last week as he set out his intentions for the withdrawal of stimulus: interest rates would not rise until “well past” the end of the ECB’s bond-buying programme, and then only at a predictable and “measured” pace, the Financial Times reported in a commentary.

Manifest, an adviser to investors that collectively oversee more than £1tn in assets, has gone into administration, the Financial Times reported. Moore Stephens, the accountancy company, has been appointed as the administrator for the UK-based business, which analyses companies on behalf of investors and advises on corporate governance issues. Jeremy Willmont, partner at Moore Stephens and administrator of Manifest, said he was currently looking for a buyer for the proxy voting agency and was in talks with a “number of people”.

The road to eurozone renewal envisioned by French President Emmanuel Macron won’t be a speedy autobahn. At meetings between French and German officials in Paris as German Chancellor Angela Merkel visited for the first time since her re-election, officials stated their differences on key planks for rebuilding the eurozone’s architecture. They pledged to come up with a “road map” for overhauling the currency bloc in June, The Wall Street Journal reported. “We are not always of the same opinion, but Germany and France have already achieved many things together,” Ms. Merkel said.

The European Central Bank has toned down plans to ask banks to stump up more cash for loans that turn sour, after a backlash in Italy, one of the eurozone’s weakest banking markets, and the European Parliament, the Financial Times reported. While the ECB says the initiative is vital to deal with the risk of a rise in non-performing loans in a future downturn, Italian officials and MEPs argue that the bank’s initial proposals for seemingly binding rules went beyond its powers and infringed on those of legislators.

Default rates in the U.K. car-finance market are creeping up, adding to regulators’ concerns over the risks posed by consumer credit, Bloomberg News reported. The Financial Conduct Authority said on Thursday that the increase is driven by buyers with elevated credit risk, despite low interest rates and economic growth. These consumers account for about 3 percent of lending, the FCA said in a report. Overall, arrears and default rates remain low. British regulators are grappling with a surge in consumer credit, led by motor finance, which can pose risks to banks and the economy.

A consortium led by VTB Group, Russia’s second-largest bank, said it is willing to buy out a local partner to ensure its offer for an indebted Indian steel mill meets government rules, setting up a contest with billionaire Lakshmi Mittal, Bloomberg News reported. Other investors in the group are willing to buy out Rewant Ruia’s stake in investment vehicle Numetal Ltd., Antoine Chemali, senior advisor for Mauritius-based Numetal, said in an interview in Mumbai on Thursday. That’s likely required because Ruia’s father is the founder of Essar Steel India Ltd.

The European Commission has proposed new measures to force banks to set aside more money against new loans turning bad and to favor offloading their existing stocks of bad debt, in a bid to reduce risks in the bank sector, Reuters reported. The proposals follow others put forward in recent months to raise capital requirements, set new loss-absorbing buffers and facilitate the orderly liquidation of failing lenders, all of which Brussels believes will make the bloc’s banks safer after many of them were rescued with taxpayers’ money during the financial crisis.

Greece’s planned August exit from its third European Stability Mechanism bailout has triggered investor optimism. Its July 2017 bond issuance, the first in three years, was oversubscribed, as were subsequent issuances in February of this year. And yet financial investors should curb their optimism, a Bloomberg View reported. Greece’s return to the markets, and its economic recovery, are likely to be a bumpy and slow -- especially if it continues to delay key reforms. Greece’s growth appears to have stabilized at a low rate; some take that as a sign of normalization.

European Union banks will have to set aside more capital against new loans that could turn sour as of Wednesday, when the European Commission will publish a proposal on larger backstops for bad debt, a draft document showed. The European Commission document, seen by Reuters, said the new rules would apply to loans originated from the date of the adoption of the proposal, which is Wednesday, opening them up to potential challenges as banks could face obligations before the new rules take effect, Reuters reported.

The election results in Italy are a lesson to Europe. Italians were once among the most enthusiastic supporters of the European project. This is true no longer, the Financial Times reported. The combination of economic malaise with political impotence has discredited not only Italy’s political and policymaking elite, but even the country’s engagement with the EU. This does not mean Italy will leave; the costs would be too great.