Germany's Yi-Ko Holding, formerly the biggest operator of Burger King restaurants in the country, has filed for insolvency, Yi-Ko's lawyers said, putting 3,000 jobs at risk. Burger King had told Yi-Ko three weeks ago to shut down its 89 restaurants across Germany immediately, saying the franchisee had violated its rules on the treatment of employees. The move did not affect the remaining 599 Burger King restaurants in Germany.

The European Central Bank on Thursday will again offer banks a chance to get cheap long-term loans, but a disappointing uptake could put it under more pressure to help kickstart the moribund economy, FMT.com reported. By pumping more liquidity into the financial system, the Frankfurt-based central bank aims to boost the eurozone economy via private-sector loans and, in turn, halt a stubborn drop in inflation. The ECB unveiled a lending programme called the Targeted Long-Term Refinancing Operations (TLTRO) in June, announcing eight rounds of borrowing to banks until 2016.

Greek financial markets plummeted on Tuesday as investors took fright at the premier's decision to hold a no-confidence vote in his administration fuelling fresh political instability and fears of the radical Syriza party taking power, The Independent reported. The Athens share index fell by almost 13 per cent, the biggest single-day drop since 1987 and a heftier decline than any registered in the recent years of financial crisis in the Mediterranean country. Yesterday has already been named “Black Tuesday”.

More than 23,000 defaulting mortgage holders are facing the prospect of legal action to repossess their homes and investment properties as banks step up efforts to confront the arrears backlog, the Irish Times reported. New figures from the Central Bank suggest that banks had proposed solutions for 93 per cent of arrears cases by the end of September, exceeding their year-end target to propose solutions in 85 per cent of cases. In almost half of those cases, however, the proposed solution involves loss of ownership.

The Perm-based Avialeasing investment company has lodged a bankruptcy petition against Russia’s leading regional carrier, UTair, which has failed to pay 3.5 million rubles ($67,000) for leasing Tu-154-M planes, the press service of the arbitration court said on Monday, the ITAR-TASS news agency reported. The airline’s current debt exceeds 3.5 million rubles, the court in Russia’s Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Region said citing Avialeasing. “That’s why Avialeasing has asked the court to declare UTair bankrupt.” The court is expected to announce the decision within five days, the press service said.

The Bank of England is willing to put aside its own forward guidance to determine how well the country’s eight largest lenders would fare in a crisis, Bloomberg News reported. Governor Mark Carney has said rate increases from the current record-low 0.5 percent are likely to be gradual and the peak in rates lower than in previous cycles. Yet in its stress test of the U.K.’s eight largest banks, the BOE assumes an increase to 4 percent by the end of 2015.

Iron ore miner Northland Resources SE has filed for bankruptcy with more than $650 million in debt following a failed attempt to refinance the business, the Oslo-listed company said in a statement on Monday. "The dramatic fall in iron ore prices this year made it impossible to raise the required financing, which was a prerequisite for continued operations," Northland board Chairman Olav Fjell said. In its third-quarter earnings report last month Northland said its total debts by the end of September stood at $657 million, while cash and cash equivalents were $10.5 million.

Mario Draghi is about to get an idea of how far reality falls short of his intentions. A round of long-term loans by the European Central Bank to lenders this week won’t even cover the repayments they owe from a previous program, according to a Bloomberg News survey of analysts. The operation could show that stimulus measures the ECB president says are “intended” to add as much as 1 trillion euros ($1.23 trillion) to the financial system won’t suffice without large-scale buying of assets such as government bonds.

Eurozone finance ministers agreed to extend Greece’s bailout by two months Monday, giving Athens and the its international creditors extra time to decide on new budget cuts and pushing a decision on further support beyond presidential elections, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Greek lawmakers passed the country’s 2015 budget Sunday amid a deadlock with international creditors who haven't signed off on the financial plan and ongoing political uncertainty, The Wall Street Journal reported. The vote comes ahead of Monday’s meeting of eurozone finance ministers in Brussels where they will gather to discuss what will happen when Greece’s 240 billion euro bailout program runs out at the end of the year. After a five day debate in Greece’s 300 seat parliament, 155 lawmakers voted in favor of the budget with 134 opposing it, while 11 lawmakers abstained.