Royal Bank of Scotland staff helping small firms to restructure debt during the financial crisis were given a list of ways to squeeze more money from struggling clients and told to "Just Hit Budget!", a memo released on Wednesday showed. The release of the 2008 document by the British Parliament's Treasury Select Committee (TSC) comes ahead of a debate by lawmakers on Thursday on the treatment of small business customers by the bank's Global Restructuring Group (GRG), the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story.

Settling a legal dispute, airline Niki’s German and Austrian administrators agreed to cooperate to resolve the insolvent carrier’s future swiftly and guarantee legal certainty for its buyer, Reuters reported. New offers can be made for Niki until Friday and a decision will follow within days, German administrator Lucas Floether and his Austrian counterpart Ulla Reisch said in a joint statement on Tuesday. “The signatures of both administrators will guarantee the buyer legal security for the closing of the sales contract,” Floether and Reisch said.

European Central Bank policy makers on both sides of the debate over when to end quantitative easing are getting new evidence to back their arguments -- thanks to oil and currency markets, Bloomberg News reported. On the one hand, surging energy prices are set to feed into euro-area inflation and embolden policy makers who want the ECB to set an end-date for its 2.6 trillion-euro ($3.2 trillion) bond-buying program. At the same time, a strengthening euro could damp prices, giving ammunition to officials who say the outlook is still too uncertain to justify tying their hands.

An influential eurozone central bank official has warned that an abrupt British departure from the EU would be a “genuine shock” threatening the stability of Europe’s financial system, the Financial Times reported. Philip Lane, governor of the Central Bank of Ireland and a member of the European Central Bank’s governing council, said the Brexit negotiations were the issue that merited his closest attention this year — and emphasised London’s importance in providing financing to the rest of the bloc.

Collapsed British firm Carillion, which has come under political fire for paying dividends while racking up big debts and a pension deficit, has handed more than $1 billion to shareholders since it was created 19 years ago, a Reuters analysis shows. The construction company raised its payout to shareholders every year, taking its dividends from 4 pence-a-share in 1999 to 18.45 pence-a-share in 2016, according to the analysis of its accounts, Reuters reported.

For Greece, there is finally light at the end of the tunnel. After nearly eight years of economic and political turmoil, the country is within striking distance of freeing itself from a bailout regime that has been traumatic for its citizens and has badly strained the eurozone, The Wall Street Journal reported. With both Athens and other European capitals eager to put the Greek drama behind them, an exit from the bailout program at its expiration in August is looking likely.

The German administrator of insolvent airline Niki said he still wanted to sell the leisure carrier to British Airways parent IAG, despite a battle between Austria and Germany over where insolvency proceedings should be handled, Reuters reported. An Austrian court ruled on Friday that the insolvency proceedings should be held there, throwing the deal to sell Niki into doubt.

Leading British lenders including Barclays, the Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group face the prospect of hundreds of millions of pounds in outstanding loans going unpaid from Carillion’s collapse on Monday, Reuters reported. Along with 10 other banks, they arranged a 790 million pound ($1.1 billion) revolving credit facility for Carillion in 2015, which made up the bulk of 835 million pounds worth of syndicated bank loans owed by Carillion that mature in 2020. Last September, five banks agreed to an additional 140 million pounds in loans repayable at the end of 2018.

UK decision-makers think Brexit will have a more negative impact on their business over the next two years, Economia reported. Sentiment fell from 105 to 98 in the last quarter of 2017, meaning businesses are becoming more pessimistic, according to a survey conducted by YouGov. It used data provided by mid-tier firm RSM’s Brexit Monitor, based on 310 interviews with middle market firms that had turnovers between £30m and £300m.

In a related story, Reuters reported that Irish airline Ryanair said on Monday it had contacted the Austrian administrator of insolvent holiday airline Niki to express its interest in buying some of its assets. Former Formula 1 world champion Niki Lauda has also re-emerged as a potential bidder for Niki ahead of a Jan. 19 deadline for fresh offers the Austrian court has set. Read more.