Germany’s finance minister said he couldn’t rule out a Greek default, a stance that will add pressure on Athens as negotiations over much-needed financing enter their final stretch. Asked whether he would repeat an assurance he gave in late 2012 that Greece wouldn’t default, Wolfgang Schäuble told The Wall Street Journal and French daily Les Echos that “I would have to think very hard before repeating this in the current situation.

Russia on Wednesday demanded the timely repayment of all debts owed to it by Ukraine and accused Kiev of effectively preparing the way for default with a new law. It threatened to take the issue to international courts if necessary. The law, approved by Ukraine's parliament on Tuesday, gives the government the right to miss payments to its international creditors as it wrangles over the terms for restructuring $23 billion worth of foreign debt. Russia holds a $3 billion Ukrainian Eurobond whose full repayment is due by the end of the year.

Barclays and the Royal Bank of Scotland were among six banks to be fined a total of $5.7 billion (£3.8 billion) by British and US regulators over allegations that they rigged the $5.3 trillion-a-day foreign exchange market, The Standard reported. The settlement, which also involved US banks JP Morgan, Bank of America and Citi, as well as Switzerland’s UBS, means banks have handed authorities around $10 billion to deal with the scandal. Barclays, Citi, JPMorgan and RBS also all pleaded guilty to a US antitrust violation.

The European Central Bank is supposed to be apolitical but it has found itself ensnared by eurozone politics, the Financial Times reported. On Wednesday, the ECB’s 25-member governing council, which is led by ECB president Mario Draghi, could discuss toughening up the collateral requirements for the Bank of Greece’s emergency loans in a move that would make life harder for Greece and its banks. It is possible that two thirds of the council will support the move as soon as the Wednesday vote. The haircuts were lowered last year after Greece returned to capital markets.

Ukraine’s parliament passed a bill Tuesday allowing the government to halt payments on some foreign debts, raising the stakes as a deadline looms in rescheduling talks with international creditors, The Wall Street Journal reported. The measure, approved in a 246-4 vote hours after it was first proposed, comes amid tough talks with creditors over restructuring debts, a key measure demanded by the International Monetary Fund as part of a $17.5-billion lending program. The bill requires the signature of President Petro Poroshenko to take effect.

Russia's top lender Sberbank has filed a lawsuit against mining company Mechel for 3.8 billion roubles ($77.74 million), the Moscow Arbitration Court reported on Tuesday. Russia's second largest state bank VTB also filed a lawsuit against the indebted steel and coal producer for 1.9 billion roubles ($38.87 million), the court reported in documents released on its website. Mechel, controlled by businessman Igor Zyuzin, incurred large debts before the economic downturn.

Three-quarters of the world’s workers are temporary, casual or self-employed and this sort of employment is likely to become more prevalent, says the International Labour Organisation. The ILO, a UN agency that specialises in work, analysed employment patterns in 180 countries and found that the “standard” model of permanent full-time employment was “less and less dominant” in rich, developed economies, the Financial Times reported. In developing economies, salaried employment was still growing as a share of the total workforce but that historical trend appeared to be slowing.

Leaders of the hard-left faction of Greece’s Syriza party have called for a “rupture” with creditors in a public challenge to Alexis Tsipras, the prime minister, as he moves closer to a new bailout deal, the Financial Times reported. The rebels include five members of Syriza’s political bureau and Central Committee led by John Milios, a former shadow finance minister.

In a related story, the International New York Times reported that Greece, having endured five years of economic austerity, is now reeling from a different condition: economic uncertainty. No one knows if Greece’s government, led by the radical left Syriza party, will strike a new deal with European creditors — or if the country will default on its debts, setting off a new crisis. Even if a deal is cut, no one knows what it will look like, whether the Greek Parliament will pass it, or whether a deal will bring a new iteration of austerity and hardship for ordinary Greeks.

Lloyds Banking Group is planning to sell €4.2 billion of face value legacy loans connected with Ireland in what will be one of the biggest such real estate portfolio sales here since the financial crash in late 2008, the Irish Times reported. Dubbed Project Poseidon, the disposal covers the vast bulk of what remains from Bank of Scotland’s former operations in Ireland. It has been brought to market by Deloitte with first bids due to be lodged in early June.