Euro zone finance ministers will discuss next week completion of the banking union, ideas for setting up a common budget and ways to simplify the bloc's fiscal rules, in preparation for a December summit on reforming the currency area, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. No conclusions are likely to be reached at the Eurogroup meeting on Monday, however, as there are widely differing views among the 19 countries that share the euro on most aspects of reform. "It will be more laying out the table before cooking starts," one senior euro zone official said.

Greece is getting ready to exit its bailout program next year and the country is finally emerging from nearly a decade of financial depression and stagnation, the International New York Times reported on an Associated Press story. For most Greeks, however, the recovery is likely to be slow and painful as austerity measures will endure for years to come. That's particularly true for many startups, which the government has put its faith in to help the economy grow, but are burdened by red tape and the high taxes meant to pay for the country's debts.

Prices in Germany unexpectedly slipped this month, highlighting the challenges facing the European Central Bank as it attempts to roll back monetary stimulus without reversing the recent uptick in inflation, the Financial Times reported. Consumer prices fell an average of 0.1 per cent over the month, compared to expectations that they would stay steady. The monthly decline brought the year on year inflation rate down from 1.8 per cent to 1.5 per cent, confirming earlier state-level readings that had suggested a pullback.

Russia risks having to bail out more banks owned by large industrial groups unless there is rapid consolidation, VTB First Deputy Chief Executive Yuri Solovyov said. Two of Russia's biggest banks, Otkritie and B&N, have had to be taken over by the central bank in the past two months after a liquidity squeeze, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. Such "pocket banks", a post-Soviet phenomenon which involved industrial groups needing their own banking wings to finance business, are still common in Russia, but some are struggling.

The 6,000 job cuts announced last week at Nordea Bank AB are just a down payment for an industry facing radical overhaul, says Chief Executive Officer Casper von Koskull. “If somebody says, where are we, or where are banks, 10 years from now, banks could easily have half what they have today,” in terms of personnel, von Koskull said in an interview in London on Friday. Nordea last week stunned unions, analysts and investors when it revealed the staff reductions, which amount to well over a tenth of the work force of the Swedish bank, Bloomberg News reported.

EasyJet has strengthened its position in Germany by agreeing to buy part of Air Berlin’s operations at Berlin Tegel airport, ending uncertainty over the fate of the failed airline’s remaining assets, Reuters reported. EasyJet said late on Friday it would enter into leases for up to 25 A320 aircraft, acquire take-off and landing slots, and offer jobs to staff, making the announcement shortly after Air Berlin’s final flight landed at Tegel.

The number of people registering as insolvent in England and Wales hit a five-year high in the third quarter, according to figures on Friday that hinted at trouble brewing in Britain’s consumer economy, Reuters reported. The government’s Insolvency Service said 27,807 people in England and Wales registered as insolvent between July and September, up from 22,389 in the three months to June and marking the biggest total since the third quarter of 2012. On a seasonally adjusted basis, the figure was just short of a three-year high struck in the first quarter of 2017.

The European Central Bank confounded monetary hawks by extending its economic stimulus programme until at least September next year, pushing down the euro as investors digested Mario Draghi’s refusal to call the end to emergency crisis-era measures, the Financial Times reported. Although the ECB announced its stimulative bond purchases will be halved to €30bn a month, the commitment to keep the programme open-ended sent European shares higher as markets anticipated access to cheap money for longer.

The German parties exploring a possible coalition said on Thursday they wanted to discuss further the question of a euro zone budget -- an idea pushed by French President Emmanuel Macron, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. "German-French cooperation is of paramount importance to us," the three groups -- the conservatives, pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) and Greens -- said in a paper released during exploratory coalition talks.

The European Central Bank is gearing up for its most important meeting of the year, as senior officials gather to decide the fate of the €2.1tn asset purchase scheme that many credit with breathing life into the eurozone recovery, the Financial Times reported. At issue is whether the ECB will declare this week that the economy has recovered sufficiently for quantitative easing to end next year — a pronouncement that would reverberate in foreign exchange markets and could shape interest rate expectations.