Insolvency specialist Begbies Traynor Group warned yesterday that its full year results would be below market expectations thanks to the declining rate of company failures, domain-b.com reported. According to Begbies, the number of UK corporate insolvencies in the first quarter of 2015 were 4,014, a 11.3 per cent decline against the same period last year, and was the lowest level of quarterly appointments since the fourth quarter of 2007.

Five years into the biggest bailout of a debtor in history, Greece is closer to the brink than ever, with time running out to avert a bankruptcy that could destabilize not only the eurozone, but the global economy as well, The Wall Street Journal reported. When Europe and the International Monetary Fund first agreed to bail Greece out on May 2, 2010, the plan was to return Greece to growth and bond markets within three years. Instead, after half a decade and €245 billion ($274 billion) in promised loans, the two sides have reached an impasse.

Ukraine has to generate $15.3 billion over four years with the help of a debt restructuring plan agreed upon last March, with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The IMF, which approved a new $17.5 billion loan for Ukraine and issued the first $4.9 billion tranche, expects that Ukraine and its creditors will agree on the terms of Ukraine’s commercial debt restructuring before the IMF’s review of the assistance program, scheduled for June, IMF First Deputy Managing Director David Lipton said in a recent statement (UNIAN, April 14), The Ukrainian Weekly reported.

The Quinn family and Anglo Irish Bank will go back to court next month after a deal to settle their multibillion-euro dispute fell through, the Irish Times reported. Minister of State at the Department of Finance Simon Harris confirmed the negotiations between the two parties had collapsed and the case would “likely be settled by the courts”. The two are pencilled in for June 6th with the case likely to last six months and potentially spill into next year.

The European Central Bank provided more financial assistance to Ireland at the height of its banking crisis in 2010 than any central bank has ever provided to any country, according to the bank’s former president. Jean-Claude Trichet told Irish politicians on Thursday that the ECB had extended emergency liquidity assistance to the country’s banking sector equivalent to 100 per cent of its gross domestic product, the Financial Times reported. “That was one quarter of the ECB’s total lending at the time and was totally unprecedented,” he said.

Royal Bank of Scotland warned it faced a tough 2015 as it plunged to a loss in the first three months of the year, weighed down by £856m of misconduct and litigation charges, The Guardian reported. The 79%-taxpayer-owned bank prepared the way for further penalties for foreign exchange rigging – including possible criminal charges – by setting aside a further £334m for manipulation of the £3.5tn-a-day global currency markets.

More State banks have defended the standard variable rates (SVR) they impose on some mortgage customers. They said that while rates are kept under review there are no imminent plans to lower them, the Irish Times reported. Permanent TSB claimed that its SVR of 4.5 per cent was “competitive in the current market” adding that it “broadly reflects the various cost inputs including the cost of funds which the bank raises from a variety of sources including the retail deposit market in Ireland and the international money markets”.

Carcraft, once described as the UK's leading car supermarket, has gone into administration today, resulting in the loss of around 550 jobs, The Telegraph reported. The announcement was made to shocked staff at the Rochdale head office at 10.30am today. Grant Thornton, the financial services company, has been appointed as administrator. Carcraft will now cease trading and all employees have been made redundant. According to a statement made by Grant Thornton today, Carcraft is "heavily loss-making", recording losses of £8m per annum "for a number of years".

Klagenfurt am Wörthersee, an Alpine lake city almost 350km from Vienna, was once the idyllic backdrop to one of the most calamitous banking collapses in Europe. Now, it is closing in on a new claim to fame: as the venue for a trial run for as-yet-untested rules within the EU on who foots the bill when banks go bust, the Financial Times reported.

Greece and its euro-area partners are stepping up talks in a bid to break an impasse over bailout aid as early as next week, even as the country’s government sent conflicting signals over its willingness to agree on long-stalled reforms, Bloomberg News reported. With Greece facing a cash crunch as early as next week, both sides in a meeting of euro-area officials agreed to pursue intensive negotiations beginning on Thursday with the target of a preliminary deal by May 3, according to two people with knowledge of the talks.