The European Commission is launching an EU-wide interconnection of national insolvency registers by linking up databases from seven Member States: the Czech Republic, Germany, Estonia, Netherlands, Austria, Romania and Slovenia - with more countries expected to join at a later stage. This first interconnection will serve as a one-stop shop for businesses, creditors and investors looking to invest in Europe.

Proposals to ensure that insolvent businesses continue to receive essential supplies from the IT and utility sectors to aid business recovery were announced in a consultation launched today by Business Minister Jo Swinson, Creditman.co.uk reported. The measures will stop these essential suppliers from seeking an unfair advantage over other creditors by increasing charges or payments of debts as a condition of continuing supply, thus benefiting both consumers and employees.

Greece fought off calls to consider a third bailout as European Central Bank President Mario Draghi warned that the pace of economic fixes is slowing, officials said after euro-area finance ministers met yesterday, Bloomberg News reported. Greece has ruled out further aid -- which would come with another raft of conditions -- after its current rescue ends, a Greek official told reporters in Brussels. According to the so-called troika of International Monetary Fund, ECB and euro-area authorities, Greece may need one anyway, an EU official said.

Iceland aims to sell as much as 30 percent of New Landsbanki, one of the banks to emerge from the 2008 financial crisis, to help reduce government debt, Reuters reported. Iceland's three main banks had assets worth around 10 times the value of the economy when they buckled under a weight of debt, sending its currency and economy into a tailspin. New Landsbanki was the only one of the three domestic lenders created out of the financial ruin to be majority-owned by the state.

Dozens of banks are poised to enter the market in the wake of barriers to new entrants being lifted, according to regulators, The Telegraph reported. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the Bank of England’s Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) said five times as many businesses are currently applying for banking licences as were granted them last year.

Spanish wireless networks provider Gowex said on Sunday it would file for bankruptcy and its CEO and founder Jenaro Garcia Martin had resigned having acknowledged reporting false accounts for at least the last four years, Reuters reported. The move came just hours after the company said it had hired PricewaterhouseCoopers to carry out a forensic audit of its accounts in a response to a report from a firm called Gotham City Research that had questioned its revenue reporting.

ArcelorMittal is looking into making an offer for Italy’s second biggest steel producer Lucchini, and a proposal is expected to be made later in July, GantDaily.com reported. Lucchini was placed under “special administration” after it was declared insolvent in 2012. The procedure aimed to save huge companies and avoid heavy job losses. The company, formerly owned by Russia’s Severstal, was badly hit by the 2008 recession that has reduced Europe’s steel demand by around 25 percent.

Permanent TSB will ensure that the buyer of its Springboard sub-prime mortgage portfolio will sign up to the terms of the Central Bank of Ireland’s code of conduct on mortgage arrears (CCMA), the minister for finance Michael Noonan has said, the Irish Times reported. Mr Noonan was replying ot a questions from Fianna Fail’s finance spokesman Michael McGrath on whether the sale of Springboard was likely to take place before the enactment of legislation to protect mortgage holders whose loans are sold to unregulated third parties.

Troubled France-Corsica ferry operator SNCM needs to go under court protection to shield itself from a European Commission order to repay 440 million euros ($600.2 million) in state aid, France's transport minister was quoted saying, Reuters reported. Frederic Cuvillier told French daily La Provence that the loss-making firm, whose unions have been on strike since June 24, cannot continue its activities in its current form without risking bankruptcy and needs an ordered restructuring.

The presidency of the European Union is largely ceremonial, rotating every six months among the bloc’s 28 nations. But Prime Minister Matteo Renzi of Italy means to use its new presidency as a platform from which to seek relief for his country’s debt-saddled economy, the International New York Times reported. On Wednesday, the second day of his nation’s six-month turn, Mr. Renzi, 39, said that the bloc’s fiscal rules should put less emphasis on debt and deficit targets and do more to stimulate members’ economies.