Alpha Bank AS, Greece’s fourth largest lender, reported a steep third-quarter net loss Tuesday due to a mammoth voluntary retirement scheme, but otherwise showed an improvement in core operating trends and declining provisions for bad loans, The Wall Street Journal reported. For the three months to September, the bank said net losses totaled €156.9 million ($197 million)—better than market expectations—compared with a net profit of €361.4 million in the second quarter. A year ago, the bank reported a €255.9 million loss.

Companies have been going bust in the European Union at the rate of about 200,000 a year for most of the period since the financial crisis. Now that figure is beginning to decline, especially in parts of Southern Europe, The Economist reported. However, legal systems across the continent are making insolvencies more difficult to resolve quickly. But handily, the surge in bankruptcies during the worst years—as well as growing concern that outmoded rules are slowing the flow of capital to firms that could use it better—has initiated a wave of reforms around much of Europe.

Ryanair is one step closer to taking over Cyprus Airways after getting through to the second round of bidding for the ailing flag carrier at the weekend, the Irish Times reported. The Irish airline was one of 15 which submitted proposals to the Cypriot government in September to acquire and turn around Cyprus Airways, which in 2012 needed a €73 million state bailout after losing €56 million. According to incoming finance chief Neil Sorahan, Ryanair was informally told on Friday that it was on a shortlist, meaning it is through to the second round of the process.

Eurozone leaders are weighing a plan to allow Greece to exit its four-year-old bailout at the end of the year by converting nearly €11bn of unused rescue funds into a backstop for Athens for when it raises cash from the markets on its own, the Financial Times reported. The plan, which will be discussed at a meeting of eurozone finance ministers in Brussels on Thursday, would allow Antonis Samaras, Greek prime minister, to declare an end to the quarterly reviews by the hated “troika” of bailout monitors ahead of parliamentary elections, which could come as early as March.

Finnair Group reported a net profit of €16.6 million for the third quarter ended Sept. 30, down 38.3% from €27 million for the same period last year, Air Transport World reported. Operating profit was down 40.7% for the period, to €23.6 million from €39.8 million in the year-ago period. The airline group attributed the disappointing performance to the strengthening of the euro against several revenue currencies, the ongoing weakness of the Finnish and eurozone economies, tumbling unit revenues, and declining cargo revenues.

HSBC’s profits fell short of expectations in the third quarter after the bank set aside $1.8 billion for misconduct settlements and compensation for customers, including a potential fine for rigging currency markets, the Irish Times reported. The provision and a jump in HSBC’s everyday compliance costs show the impact of regulators’ increasing efforts to clamp down on bad behaviour in the global banking industry that contributed to the financial crisis.

Irish banks are preventing small businesses from growing “beyond a certain size” because they only offer them short-term loans, according to Minister for Finance Michael Noonan, the Irish Times reported. Speaking yesterday at the launch of the Strategic Banking Corporation of Ireland (SBCI), which will make up to €5 billion in cheap, longer-term loans available to small and medium-sized businesses over five years, the Minister pointed out these enterprises were a very important part of the economy. “But once they reach a certain size they do not continue to grow,” he said.

The ruble tumbled the most since 2011 after a larger-than-forecast increase of Russia’s key interest rate failed to ease concern that the economy will remain hobbled by sanctions and capital flight. The Bank of Russia raised its key rate to 9.5 percent percent from 8 percent, according to a website statement. That surprised all 31 economists surveyed by Bloomberg. Governor Elvira Nabiullina is resorting to higher borrowing costs to halt a currency run even after three earlier increases failed to assuage investors concerned about President Vladimir Putin’s stance on Ukraine.

French public passenger transport group Transdev, owned by Veolia and state bank CDC, is to call in loans to its France-Corsica ferry operator unit SNCM next week, it said on Friday, pushing the unit into filing for court protection from insolvency, Reuters reported. Transdev's owners have said court protection from creditors is the only way to shield the loss-making ferry operator from two separate European Union state aid repayment claims totalling 440 million euros.

Three former managers blamed for the crisis that has befallen the world’s oldest bank, and devastated the community whose economy depended on it, were sentenced on Friday to jail time and banned from public office for five years, the International New York Times reported. The executives of the bank, Monte dei Paschi di Siena, were accused of hiding a convoluted derivatives contract that helped it conceal its losses.