Greece inched closer to a return to public market finance for at least part of its Sisyphean debt burden this week, with benchmark bond yields dropping to levels seen when the country last issued new debt three years ago, the Financial Times reported. Enthusiasm for the small portion of Greek debt held in private hands and available to trade followed a long-delayed agreement on fiscal and structural reform measures with European creditors this month, paving the way towards debt relief talks.

The Co-operative Bank is poised to reveal in the coming days that it is a step closer to bolstering its balance sheet to meet the Bank of England’s capital requirements ahead of a looming deadline, the Financial Times reported. The lossmaking bank is preparing to announce that it is in advanced talks with existing hedge fund investors about injecting more capital, after stating in January that it will fall short of the regulatory threshold during the next few years.

Banks' "unconstrained" ability to generate credit by pledging the same assets as collateral multiple times needs to be curbed or risks creating a new financial bubble, the vice president of the European Central Bank said on Thursday. Vitor Constancio's remarks underscored the ECB's concerns about the prospect of a new boom in lending between financial firms at a time when its own ultra-easy monetary policy boosts banks' ability to extend credit and investors' appetite for risk, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story.

BT has attempted to draw a line under its worst performance since the turn of decade with a restructuring of its scandal-hit international arm, the loss of 4,000 jobs and a warning over the size of its dividend next year, the Financial Times reported. But with an alleged accounting fraud still being investigated in Italy and questions over future free cash flow amid tighter regulatory scrutiny, Gavin Patterson was forced to put on a brave face following the toughest period since he took over as chief executive in 2013. “Let me be clear: this has been a challenging year.

We do not yet know whether Emmanuel Macron’s win in the French election presages a normalisation of European politics, and of EU compromise and unity. But we can be pretty sure that it does presage an intensified debate on the normalisation of European monetary policy, the Financial Times reported in a commentary. On the question of when, the improvement in economic activity and uptick in headline inflation is prompting calls to pull the plug on monetary stimulus sooner. But core inflation, which excludes volatile energy and food prices, remains stuck at about 1 per cent.

Germany's SolarWorld, once Europe's biggest solar power equipment group, said on Wednesday it would file for insolvency, overwhelmed by Chinese rivals who had long been a thorn in the side of founder and CEO Frank Asbeck, once known as "the Sun King”, Reuters reported. SolarWorld was one of the few German solar power companies to survive a major crisis at the turn of the decade, caused by a glut in production of panels that led prices to fall and peers to collapse, including Q-Cells, Solon and Conergy.

Ireland is home to the world’s fourth-largest “shadow banking” industry, with $2.2 trillion of nonbanking financial assets based in funds, special-purpose vehicles and other little-understood entities in Dublin’s IFSC, according to a report published on Tuesday, the Irish Times reported. The figure equates to almost eight times the size of the Irish economy, as measured by gross domestic product.

Risk perception for most of the world's countries have improved in the past year, according to a Standard Chartered analysis of credit default swaps (CDS), contrasting with deterioration in France, Italy, the United States and Germany, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. CDS are derivatives used by investors to hedge against a default or restructuring of debt. The higher the risk of default, the higher the CDS spread.

The world's largest independent aircraft leasing company, AerCap said on Tuesday there was "good solid demand" for the wide-body jets, after concerns surfaced in the U.S. about weak demand for the most widely traded types of jets, Reuters reported. American Airlines and Delta Air Lines have announced plans to defer deliveries of long-haul passenger planes, amid reports of a looming glut of capacity of such aircraft as planemakers bring out various new models while still upgrading old ones.

France’s economic growth is expected to climb back to around its historical average following the election of its centrist president, accelerating from disappointing expansion at the start of the year, according to the country’s central bank, the Financial Times reported. Latest estimates from the Bank of France forecast a 0.5 per cent GDP expansion in three months to the end of June – the period encompassing the two round presidential vote which culminated in the election of Emmanuel Macron last weekend.