The Central Bank has issued a robust defence of its contentious home loan caps, saying commercial banks and mortgage brokers are unable on their own to uphold “prudent” credit standards, the Irish Times reported. The loan caps will neither add to nor relieve the shortage of new homes, the Central Bank said. It added the rules would contribute to a shift in housing demand and supply towards rental accommodation.

Spain's Abengoa is seen winning more time for talks aimed at avoiding bankruptcy as more creditors have agreed to back debt restructuring plan and inject new emergency liquidity, two sources familiar with the matter said on Tuesday. The engineering and energy company, struggling with a 9.4-billion-euro ($10.6 billion) debt pile, is in pre-insolvency talks with lenders and has until March 28 to win their backing and avoid becoming Spain's largest ever bankruptcy.

The Royal Bank of Scotland said on Tuesday that it had made a final payment of 1.19 billion pounds, or about $1.7 billion, to the British government, fulfilling a condition of its bailout package that gave the government priority for dividend payments, the International New York Times DealBook blog reported. The British government owns about 73 percent of R.B.S. after having injected £45 billion into the bank during the financial crisis. As part of that bailout, the government received a so-called dividend access share, which gave it “enhanced rights” for dividends paid by the bank.

The number of Russians living below the poverty line rose to the highest levels in nearly a decade in 2015, as the oil-dependent economy suffered a second year of recession, data showed Monday, The Wall Street Journal reported. Years of high crude oil prices had pushed Russian’s living standards up, but a recent sharp drop in prices has left Russia’s economy stuck in a recession despite government claims that the worst is over.

A British vote to leave the European Union could cost the economy £100 billion (€1.28bn) and 950,000 jobs by 2020, according to research commissioned by employers’ group the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), the Irish Times reported. The CBI said “Brexit” would deliver a serious shock to the British economy, regardless of any trade deals the country could negotiate with its former European partners.

Bank of Ireland’s UK subsidiary will not offer mortgages for more than £500,000, according to Des Crowley, chief executive of the division, the Irish Times reported. He said this was designed to reduce the bank’s exposure to modestly-sized, multimillion-pound homes in expensive areas, notably in London. “We’re conservative in the London market, where it is quite heated and it is difficult for first-time buyers in particular to get on to the housing ladder,” he told the Daily Telegraph following the release of the bank’s UK results to the British media.

Greece’s bailout negotiators are on the verge of leaving Athens without an agreement on a new set of economic reform measures, a move that would further delay politically sensitive debt relief talks and call into question the future of the €86bn rescue programme, the Financial Times reported. The threat to shut down talks until after next week’s Easter holidays came amid increasing acrimony between Greek leaders and the IMF, which is insisting on more concrete budget savings in order to sign off on the first quarterly review of the new bailout.

When Ireland’s “bad bank” announced this week that it would redeem €2.5bn of its debt nine months early, the news should have helped to confirm the country’s emergence as a model of post-austerity restructuring, the Financial Times reported. With the Irish economy growing at 7.8 per cent annually after years of recession, Nama, as the bank is known, can claim to have played its part in the recovery.

Catalonia is deliberately flirting with default on its bank loans as the region’s separatist government tries to force the Spanish state to deliver aid payments, according to two people familiar with the situation, Bloomberg News reported.

Abengoa’s global ambitions are now the source of its troubles, the International New York Times reported. Saddled with debt from its expansion, the company is scrambling to avoid what would be the largest bankruptcy in Spanish corporate history. Creditors and shareholders are taking the company to court as losses mount and crucial financial support disappears. The company’s changing fortunes, from industry darling to financial invalid, are an extreme example of the challenges facing players in the renewable energy business.