The chief executive of Deutsche Bank on Wednesday called for more consolidation in the banking industry in Germany – and across Europe – and action by central banks as the region’s lenders struggle to navigate an environment of historically low interest rates, the International New York Times DealBook blog reported. The chief executive, John Cryan, said that the European Central Bank helped stabilize Europe after the financial crisis, but that monetary policy had since weighed on bank profits – by cutting into net interest income – and had hurt savers and their pension investments.

Restructuring the debt of struggling offshore oil service vessel (OSV) and drilling rig companies will take years to complete and complex cases must go through multiple stages, an executive at top Norwegian bank DNB told Reuters on Tuesday. Dozens of exploration rigs and more than 100 service vessels have been mothballed since the plunge in oil prices began in mid-2014, leaving owners unable to repay billions of dollars to banks and bondholders.

Mortgage lending in the UK has fallen to its lowest level in 18 months and consumer borrowing has slowed down, suggesting consumers are turning away from large purchases after the Brexit vote, the Financial Times reported. The comprehensive official figures from the Bank of England for July were worse than economists expected and also showed that non-financial companies borrowed less in July than the average of the previous six months. The figures will intensify arguments over the short-term economic effects of the vote for Brexit.

In a landmark ruling by the European Commission, Ireland has been ordered to recoup up to €13 billion from US tech company Apple in unpaid taxes, the Irish Times reported. The EU’s powerful competition arm said on Tuesday that Apple had been given selective treatment by Ireland through two tax rulings granted to the company in 1991 and 2007. That treatment allowed Apple to avoid taxation on almost all profits generated by sales of its products in the EU single market, because Apple recorded the sales in Ireland rather than where products were sold, the commission said.

The Alba Iulia Court of Appeal cancelled the insolvency of state-owned energy producer CE Hunedoara at the end of May, but the company filed again for insolvency at the end of June, Romania-Insider.com reported. The two-month intermezzo worsened the company’s financial indicators as its total debt went up by almost EUR 22.5 million, reports local Profit.ro. The company’s liabilities thus reached EUR 320 million. CE Hunedoara is the biggest company in the Valea Jiului area and in the Hunedoara county. It is the only provider of thermal energy in the area.

Britain should continue paying into the EU budget as part of a post-Brexit deal that would allow it to maintain access to key areas of the single market, according to a paper prepared by a group of five senior policymakers and scholars, the Financial Times reported.

European Central Bank Executive Board member Benoit Coeure said unconventional monetary policy may have to be used differently and more frequently if governments don’t act to boost the growth potential of euro-area economies, Bloomberg News reported. “We may see short-term rates being pushed to the effective lower bound more frequently in the event of macroeconomic shocks,” Coeure said Saturday in a speech at the U.S. Federal Reserve’s annual policy symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. His remarks were posted on the ECB’s website.

Banca Popolare di Bari is poised to test Italy's new bad loan guarantee, but questions remain over whether it can pave the way for other banks seeking to securitise soured debt, Reuters reported. Earlier this month, Bari announced it had structured a 140.5m securitisation backed by non-performing loans, which it plans to sell to the public market with the help of Italy's new state guarantee, known as Gacs.

When the European Union pressured Switzerland to scrap tax breaks for foreign companies, Geneva had most to lose. Now, the canton that is home to almost 1,000 multinationals is set to use tax to burnish its appeal, the Irish Times reported. Geneva will on August 30th propose cutting its corporate tax rate to 13.49 per cent from 24.2 per cent, according to sources. For an interim period of five years, the rate will be a slightly higher 13.79 per cent, the sources said.

Spain’s robust economic expansion is defying concerns that a political impasse, now in its ninth month with no end in sight, would tarnish one of Europe’s economic bright spots, The Wall Street Journal reported. But the pillars that have sustained Spain’s recovery from recession are showing signs of strain, and economists expect growth to slow in 2017—in part because political uncertainty is putting a damper on some kinds of investment. The Spanish economy grew 0.8% in the second quarter driven by consumer spending and exports, the country’s statistics agency said Thursday.