Barclays said on Thursday that it expected to spend an additional 1 billion pounds, or about $1.5 billion, over the next three years to meet new regulatory requirements intended to shield its retail customers from other parts of the bank during any future financial crisis, the International New York Times reported. The British bank cut its profitability target for 2016, saying that the coming structural changes required by regulators in Britain and in the United States would drag on its results. The changes include the so-called ring-fencing of its retail operations in Britain.

Britain’s ‘bad bank’, which is running down the loans of two bailed out lenders, said it repaid £500 million to the government in the six months ended September, the Irish Times reported. UK Asset Resolution Ltd (UKAR), a state-run ‘zombie bank’ that does not take on new business, said it had now returned £14.6 billion, or 30 per cent of the loan to the government. The bank said it had reduced the size of its balance sheet by £8.5 billion during the period.

Ukraine’s Western allies are preparing to accelerate planned changes to the International Monetary Fund’s lending policies to prevent Russia from stymieing the country’s $25 billion financial rescue package, The Wall Street Journal reported. Ukraine’s economy has suffered drastically over the past year or so, in large part due to a still-simmering conflict with Russia-backed separatists in the east. The Kremlin has rejected Ukraine’s invitation to participate in a debt restructuring, and Kiev has said it won’t be able to pay all of the $3 billion due to Moscow by the end of the year.

A Ukrainian Eurobond held by Russia and due for redemption in December is "official" debt, and for that reason Russia is not taking part in restructuring talks Ukraine has held with private creditors, Russia's finance minister said on Wednesday. Anton Siluanov told journalists that Moscow would take legal measures if Kiev did not repay the debt on time. Russia's longstanding position is that the $3 billion Ukrainian Eurobond should be classified as official intergovernmental debt and is therefore subject to different rules than for sovereign debt owned by private firms.

A remarkable period of growth ended at Volkswagen on Wednesday when the carmaker reported its first quarterly loss in at least 15 years and began the costly process of absorbing the expense of fixing millions of cars designed to cheat on emissions tests, the International New York Times reported. The day also was the end of a defining era of Volkswagen ambition. Matthias Müller, the new chief executive, signaled that the company would no longer be focused on becoming the world’s largest carmaker. He said on Wednesday that sales would not cease to be an overriding measure of success.

Britons are finally as well-off as they were before the crisis, the Office for National Statistics has said, with households benefiting from higher earnings and rising employment, the Financial Times reported. However, the gains have not been equally shared: workers are still poorer than they were in 2007/8, while retirees are significantly better off. The figures are a boost for George Osborne, suggesting that living standards in the UK are finally higher than before the crash, thanks to economic growth and a strengthening labour market.

The government of the Netherlands said on Tuesday that it planned to proceed with a sale of shares of the state-owned lender ABN Amro in an initial public offering, possibly as soon as the fourth quarter of this year, the International New York Times reported. The government aims to recoup tens of billions of euros that it spent to rescue the lender seven years ago.

Italy sold two-year debt at a negative yield for the first time on Tuesday, as concerns over the health of the global economy and expectations of further central bank stimulus reignited a rally in bond markets, the Financial Times reported. The sale gains Italy entry to a select group of countries including Germany, France and Switzerland whose borrowing rates have turned negative as investors prove willing to buy their debt at any price. “This is an Alice in Wonderland situation,” said Andrew Milligan, head of global strategy at Standard Life Investments.

The fate of emerging market currencies is looming ever larger in the outlook for interest rates in The House of Lords, Parliament’s upper chamber, issued a rare rebuke to the government Monday over plans to cut tax rebates for working families, a widely unpopular part of a budget-cutting strategy that would affect thousands of British householdsm The Wall Street Journal reported.

Standard Chartered, the Asia-focused bank based in London, said on Monday that it planned to exit its equity derivatives and convertible bonds units as its new chief executive, William T. Winters, reshapes the company, the International New York Times reported. The decision to wind down those businesses followed the bank’s decision to close its institutional cash equities, equity research and equity capital markets operations in January.