The main representative body for Irish banks has welcomed the Central Bank’s decision to ease its proposals on loan-to-value (LTV) mortgage limits for first-time buyers but cautioned it could have an impact on house building, the Irish Times reported. “While a 90 per cent loan to value for first-time buyers on the first €220,000 value of a property is welcome, the extent to which this will effectively accommodate first-time buyers, particularly in urban areas, is uncertain,” Banking & Payments Federation Ireland said.

Greek bank shares suffered their worst one day loss on record on Wednesday, as anxiety grew over the new government’s plan to renegotiate Greece’s €240bn bailout, the Financial Times reported. The country’s four biggest lenders saw their stock prices plummet by an average of more than 25 per cent just two days after Alexis Tsipras, leader of leftwing party Syriza, was sworn in as prime minister. It was the third day of double-digit share slides for the banks.

Germany’s finance minister said on Tuesday that Ukraine should start negotiations with its creditors on how to restructure its debts as part of a wider plan to stabilize the conflict-ridden country, The Wall Street Journal reported. Efforts by the international community, including the International Monetary Fund, to secure Ukraine’s financial needs “are linked to Ukraine also making efforts to talk to its creditors about an extension of maturities, so a kind of debt restructuring,” Wolfgang Schäuble said following talks with his European Union counterparts.

It’s no secret what Yanis Varoufakis thinks Greece should do with its debt. The economics professor at the University of Athens, who announced his appointment as the country’s finance minister in a posting on his personal blog on Tuesday, has been arguing since the beginning of the crisis that Greece should default while staying a member of the euro area, the Irish Times reported. As well as on his website, Mr Varoufakis shares his opinions with 128,000 Twitter followers.

Corporate debt restructurings will become easier in France under proposals being considered by lawmakers to restrict shareholder involvement in the process, Bloomberg News reported. France’s Parliament will begin discussions today on a reform bill to bolster the nation’s growth potential. Economy Minister Emmanuel Macron is proposing to speed up insolvency procedures by making it simpler for companies to negotiate with lenders.

Greece and its creditors veered toward confrontation as its new, leftist government pledged to make good on promises to reverse years of public-spending cuts despite warnings from Berlin and other European capitals that doing so could plunge the country, and Europe, into deeper crisis, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The trial against three former managers of the independent utilities discounter Teldafax resumed on Monday, putting an end to a nearly year-long suspension, Deutsche Welle reported. Last February, Teldafax's former senior executives, Klaus Bath, Gernot Koch and Michael Josten, had stood before a Bonn district court and were facing charges of delayed filing for insolvency, unlawful bookkeeping and organized fraud to cover up a bankruptcy. But shortly after the start of the trial, the hearings went into hiatus because the court declared itself not responsible for the case.

Perhaps more than any other financial figure, Mark Carney has the job of ensuring that the world’s largest banks are no longer a great danger to the economies in which they operate, the International New York Times reported. Mr. Carney, who is attending the World Economic Forum here, is governor of the Bank of England. But he is also the chairman of the Financial Stability Board, a powerful group that is made up of financial regulators from around the world.

Fears that thousands of homeowners are facing repossession ahead of an election has prompted Taoiseach Enda Kenny to call in the head of the State Insolvency Service for a meeting on Wednesday. There is concern in Government that few debt deals between banks and homeowners are being done, leaving those in arrears vulnerable to having their homes taken from them, Independent.ie reported. Some 30,000 homeowners have received letters from their banks threatening repossession. These arrears cases could end up swamping the courts just as an election is called, in 2016.

Italy’s latest effort to address its chronic tax evasion problem is keeping Tancredi Marino very busy. The Milan-based tax lawyer is hiring extra attorneys to handle dozens of requests from Italians looking to use an imminent amnesty to bring back money stashed in Switzerland and Monaco, The Wall Street Journal reported. But Mr.