Banks, insurance companies and investment funds in Ireland will have to pay an extra €15 million this year to help cover the running costs of their regulator, the Central Bank of Ireland. This represents a 29 per cent rise in the industry’s contribution to the Central Bank’s running costs, which will increase to €66 million from €51.1 million in 2014. This raises the prospect of banks and insurance companies passing on the cost to their customers by way of higher fees or premiums.

The Russian government’s decision to change its plan on Aeroflot PJSC’s takeover of Transaero Airlines sent the shares of the nation’s biggest airline surging, Bloomberg News reported. The Russian government will change its plan on Transaero and its bankruptcy “isn’t ruled out,” First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov said in Moscow on Wednesday. Aeroflot’s offer to buy 75 percent plus 1 share of Transaero expired on Tuesday, RIA Novosti reported, citing Transport Minister Maxim Sokolov. A government commission earlier this month backed the takeover of Transaero by Aeroflot.

The head of the International Monetary Fund said on Wednesday that global growth would probably be weaker this year as the world economy confronts a host of problems, including a refugee crisis in Europe, an economic slowdown in China and a pending rise in United States interest rates, the International New York Times reported. The fund’s managing director, Christine Lagarde, predicted a moderate rebound in growth in advanced economies such as those of the United States, Europe and Japan. But she said emerging economies would experience a fifth consecutive year of slowing activity.

The additional state borrowing undertaken as part of the bank bailout has already cost the state almost €9 billion to service, according to the report of the Comptroller & Auditor General, the Irish Times reported. This cost largely offsets all the income which the state received from the banks in return for giving them the guarantee. The C&AG calculates that the total cost of the bailout has been €60 billion so far for the State.

Pretax losses at Irish-based oil and gas exploration company Providence Resources widened in the six months ending June 30th as the group said it was in talks with its lender to extend its debt facility. Providence reported a first-half pretax loss of €8.42 million as against €3.37 million for the same period a year earlier with a loss per share of 7.94 cents versus 5.22 cents in the first six months of 2014. The Tony O’Reilly-headed group said that as with other explorers, Providence has been hit by the fall in oil prices but said it remained focused on its core Irish-centric strategy.

Russia’s economic crisis has put dozens of banks out of business this year and is threatening many more. But for others, it is turning into a bonanza, Bloomberg News reported. PJSC B&N Bank, founded by Mikhail Gutseriev, the billionaire owner of OAO Russneft, is one of the beneficiaries. In recent months, the company has gobbled up a string of troubled lenders to become one of Russia’s largest private banks. That pace of growth was hard to imagine before U.S.

The International Monetary Fund warned on Tuesday that emerging market firms, which together have amassed a record $18 trillion (€16 trillion) of debt, need careful monitoring as the era of record low global interest rates comes to an end, the Irish Times reported. In its latest Global Financial Stability report, the fund said the biggest rises in ‘leverage’ – the amount of debt relative to a firm’s equity – had come in “vulnerable sectors” like construction, mining and oil and gas, and were increasingly exposed to currency risk.

Two former chief executives of Alitalia and three other former managers were given hefty jail terms on Monday over wrongdoing connected to the airline's bankruptcy in 2008, Reuters reported. A Rome court sentenced Giancarlo Cimoli, who ran the company from 2004 to 2007, to eight years and eight months for culpable bankruptcy and market-rigging, while his predecessor Francesco Mengozzi got a five-year sentence. After the 2008 bankruptcy a series of managers failed to turn the company around, despite the sale of a 25 percent stake to Air France KLM in 2009.

Britain's second-biggest steelmaker SSI UK said on Monday it plans to mothball its Redcar plant in northeast England and axe about 1,700 jobs, calling its future into question and deepening a crisis in the British steel sector. The loss-making company, a unit of Thailand's biggest steelmaker Sahaviriya Steel Industries (SSI), has been hit by a slump in steel prices this year ST-CRU-IDX, which it expects will continue in the short term. The Redcar plant, SSI's only British operation, employs 2,000 people directly, meaning it plans to axe nearly its entire workforce.

Members of the Northern Ireland Assembly will witness the Dáil Committee on Public Accounts quiz Nama on the controversial €1.6 billion Project Eagle loan sale later this week, the Irish Times reported. The Dáil committee is due to question the agency on Thursday about the sale of debts due to it from mainly Northern-based borrowers to US investment fund Cerberus in early 2014. Members of the Northern Ireland Assembly’s finance and personnel committee, which is carrying out its own investigation, are due to attend Thursday’s Leinster House hearings.