Crédit Agricole SA said that it was "cheated" and kept in the dark about Banco Espírito Santo SA 's dealings with its troubled parent company, after the crisis facing the Portuguese lender nearly wiped away all of the French bank's profit in the second quarter, the Wall Street Journal reported today.

Portugal’s rescue of Banco Espirito Santo SA may have eased some doubts about Europe’s banking industry by showing investors how the European Union’s thinking has evolved on handling failing lenders, Bloomberg News reported today. The decision shielding some creditors spurred a rally in bank stocks and Portuguese assets yesterday as it demonstrated authorities were able to shutter a bank without sparking a fresh bout of market tensions that have roiled Europe since 2009.

Portugal’s central bank stepped up efforts to clean up the troubled lender Banco Espírito Santo and end its family control after the bank reported a stunning first-half loss of $4.8 billion that will force it to raise more capital, the International New York Times reported. After the bank’s earnings report, the central bank issued a statement ordering Banco Espírito Santo to raise more funds and announced the suspension of three members of the Espírito Santo family, which has controlled the bank for generations.

Britain’s Serious Fraud Office said on Thursday that it had reached a second settlement in a series of civil claims brought by two brothers after a flawed investigation into the collapse of the Icelandic bank Kaupthing during the financial crisis, the International New York Times DealBook blog reported.

Zodiac Pool Solutions SAS, the Paris-based swimming pool and spa manufacturer, filed Thursday for bankruptcy protection in the U.S. as part of its debt-restructuring effort now under way in the U.K., The Wall Street Journal reported. Formerly known as Zodiac Marine & Pool, Zodiac Pool filed for protection under Chapter 15—the section of the Bankruptcy Code that deals with international insolvencies—in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del.

Compensation payments totalling €10 million have been paid to more than 3,100 depositors of Berehaven Credit Union, the Central Bank has said. The credit union in Cork closed its doors last week and a liquidator was appointed following High Court orders issued on behalf of the Central Bank, the Irish Times reported. Cheques have now been posted to over 85 per cent of the credit union’s members. The bank said remaining deposits are being progressed “as quickly as possible” and it is expected that further payments will be made shortly.

The original Mastertronic actually disappeared in the mid-90s, but it was reborn in 2004 when one of its co-founders, Frank Herman, helped negotiate the purchase of the name from Sega. Sadly, the UK-based games publisher, now known as the Mastertronic Group, is once again facing a bleak future, as it has announced plans to close its headquarters, lay off 40 percent of its staff and completely exit the business of publishing physical copies of games, PC Gamer reported.

The head of Russia's state development bank has ruled out taking part in a rescue of ailing miner Mechel, possibly making a rival government-promoted debt-for-equity deal involving creditors a more likely option to save the company, Reuters reported. Russia has been looking into ways to help Mechel, a coal-to-steel group with $8.6 billion in debt and 70,000 workers, for several months and has proposed two schemes, both involving a change in ownership.

Banco Espírito Santo has posted a first-half net loss of €3.58bn that exposes the full extent of the Portuguese lender’s exposure to the financial woes engulfing its main shareholder, the Espírito Santo family group, the Financial Times reported. BES, Portugal’s largest listed lender by assets, said “extraordinary events” had resulted in impairment and contingency costs totalling €4.25bn and had cut its capital strength to below the regulatory minimum. The record loss wipes out BES’s existing capital buffer of €2.1bn and implies that it will have to raise fresh capital.

A new EU financial services tsar charged with regulating the City of London and ensuring financial stability in the region would be appointed in Brussels under new plans being considered by Jean-Claude Juncker, the incoming European Commission president, the Financial Times reported. Mr Juncker is weighing the creation of a powerful standalone finance directorate, which some London-based banks fear will tilt wider EU financial policy towards the eurozone.