Russia laid the groundwork for an operation that will reduce some of its closest and biggest dollar bond payments before the end of the year, Bloomberg News reported. The Finance Ministry has permission to swap up to $4 billion of debt maturing in 2018, 2028 and 2030 into new notes, according to a decree published on the government’s website on Tuesday. The price of the exchange won’t exceed the current market value, according to the decree. The swap aims to lower Russia’s debt load and servicing costs and reduce the volume of payments owed before 2019, the decree said.

The UK’s most senior supervisor of banks and insurers has given his starkest warning to date over the risks the financial system faces from a cliff-edge Brexit without a transition period, the Financial Times reported. Sam Woods, a deputy governor of the Bank of England, said an audit of worst-case contingency plans by banks and insurers had underlined fears of added cost and complexity for business and supervisors, should companies lose their EU “passport” with no time to adjust to a new regime.

Industrial output in Germany contracted by 1.1 per cent in June compared to May – its biggest drop of the year and defying expectations of growth in a weak end to the quarter for a sector which accounts for nearly a third of the country’s economy. Official figures from Destatis show factory output also fell back on a year on year measure from 5 per cent to 2.4 per cent growth in June, the Financial Times reported. An average forecast from analysts pointed to a 3.7 per cent climb.

Delivering yet another jolt to Russia’s central bank, last month brought a new surprise after an inflationary shock in June, Bloomberg News reported. The unexpected reading in the consumer-price index pushed it below the Bank of Russia’s target of 4 percent months ahead of a year-end deadline, as a surge in food costs fizzled out. But when it comes to the direction of policy, the turnaround may not be much of a game changer after the central bank put its easing cycle on pause in July following three straight cuts.

The European Parliament is preparing to toughen EU plans to police London’s euro clearing business after Brexit, raising the risk that the UK might lose the lucrative activity, the Financial Times reported. The parliament and national governments will next month begin discussing proposals that would require UK clearing houses handling large volumes of euro-denominated contracts to comply with EU rules and accept European supervision. The plans were presented in June by the European Commission and have already raised hackles in the City of London.

European investment-grade bonds will become a world of pain if volatility rises from record lows because investors aren’t being compensated for liquidity, default and downgrade risks, Bloomberg News reported. On top of those dangers, high debt burdens and aggressive valuations will conspire to crimp capital gains on European bonds this late in the global credit cycle. That’s the warning from U.S. Treasury bond bull Steven Major, who’s now sounding an alarm on credit markets in Europe.

Greece is finally growing again. But it has been arguably the eurozone’s greatest failure. Catapulted into a debt crisis with a 15 per cent government spending deficit in 2009, the country suffered eight years of economic contraction, the Financial Times reported. Unemployment is still 23 per cent, youth unemployment 45 per cent. Greece’s “Great Depression” has been as deep as that of the US in the early 1930s, but twice as long. Can Europe learn from the country’s painful experience? A first lesson is to reform at the top of the cycle.

The U.K. may be headed for the door, but its lawmakers and civil servants in Brussels still have their work cut out as the European Union overhauls financial-services rules that will affect firms in London even after Brexit, Bloomberg News reported. Negotiations will resume soon on wide-ranging banking legislation that translates global standards into EU law, as well as a swathe of new rules on everything from pensions to covered bonds and derivatives clearing. All this matters to the U.K.

Russia’s largest oil company disclosed another advance payment to Venezuela’s state producer after the U.S. sanctioned President Nicolas Maduro on Monday, Bloomberg News reported. Rosneft PJSC paid $1.02 billion to Petroleos de Venezuela SA in April for future crude supplies, the state-run Russian producer said in an earnings statement on Friday. That follows advance payments of about $1.5 billion in 2016 and comes a day after Rosneft Chief Executive Officer Igor Sechin pledged to stick with investment plans in the crisis-torn Latin American nation.

The directors of small British construction businesses are lending them more money to plug a funding gap as banks set tighter lending criteria and major contractors delay payments, a survey showed on Monday. Directors lent the companies 38 million pounds in 2015/16, up from 29.7 million pounds in 2013/14, said online finance market Funding Options, which surveyed electricians, plumbers, plasterers, carpenters, decorators, scaffolders and roofing businesses, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story.