The regulator overseeing the Vatican's troublesome financial institutions said on Monday there has been considerable improvement in transparency and the prevention of money laundering, but that more progress was needed, The Wall Street Journal reported. The Holy See, pushed by Pope Francis and his predecessor Pope Benedict XVI, has introduced rules to meet international standards and end practices at its financial institutions, including the Vatican bank, that people both within and outside the church bureaucracy have described as opaque.

Credit Suisse has done what no other huge bank has done in over two decades: plead guilty to criminal wrongdoing, the International New York Times DealBook blog reported. In a sign that global banking giants are no longer immune from criminal charges — despite public concerns that financial institutions have grown so large and interconnected that they are “too big to jail” — federal prosecutors demanded that Credit Suisse’s parent company plead guilty to helping thousands of American account holders hide their wealth and evade taxes.

Bad loans held by Spanish banks fell for the second month in a row in March, indicating that a budding economic recovery is finally starting to benefit the country's lending institutions, The Wall Street Journal reported. Data released Monday by the Bank of Spain showed that nonperforming loans stood at €192.77 billion euros ($263.98 billion), down from €195.24 billion in February. In total, 13.38% of lenders' outstanding debts were classified as nonperforming at the end of the month.

A new standards body for British bankers will be launched this year, with a chairman appointed by an independent panel led by Bank of England governor Mark Carney, the Irish Times reported. Richard Lambert, a former director general of the Confederation of British Industry, who was tasked with setting the body up, said the Banking Standards Review Council (BSRC) would be a champion for better banking standards in the UK.

Mario Draghi has left little room for doubt. Ninety percent of economists in the Bloomberg Monthly Survey predict the European Central Bank president will ease monetary policy in June after saying on May 8 that officials are “comfortable” with acting then. While that allows investors to prepare for added stimulus and a weaker euro, it also sets them up for a bigger disappointment should he fail to deliver.

Deutsche Bank AG plans to sell €8 billion ($11 billion) of new shares in a bid to quell concerns about its capital buffers in a challenging business and regulatory environment, The Wall Street Journal reported. The move comes in the midst of a health check of the European banking sector, and as Germany's largest lender seeks to grab market share and improve its position as a global investment and retail bank.

People could be stopped taking out mortgages worth many times their salary to buy new homes, the Governor of the Bank of England has said, The Telegraph reported. Mark Carney said in an interview that capping the size of mortgage ratios to salaries was one measure the Bank was considering to controlling the housing market. The Bank was also watching to see if the Government’s Help to Buy scheme – in which the Government gives people taxpayers money to cover deposits on new homes worth up to £600,000 - was fuelling them.

The Co-op's members voted unanimously on Saturday to accept a controversial plan to overhaul the 150-year-old organisation, which has been rocked by a series of crises, The Guardian reported. The decision to endorse reforms put forward by City grandee Paul Myners will be seen as a major victory for its executive directors. Spelling out the scale of the crisis facing the group, Richard Pennycook, the group's interim chief executive, pointed out that debt interest payments were now costing the organisation £100m a year.

Weak consumer spending and business investment brought the French economy to a standstill in the first quarter of the year, with inventory changes and public spending the only factors keeping the euro zone’s second-largest economy from contracting, the Irish Times reported. First quarter data released today missed expectations of analysts polled by Reuters of 0.2 per cent growth. France will now need 0.5 per cent growth each quarter to meet a government forecast of 1 percent growth for 2014, Natixis Asset Management chief economist Philippe Waechter estimated.

Russia’s first-quarter economic growth slowed to the weakest in a year as the standoff against the U.S. and its allies over Ukraine shrivels up investment. Gross domestic product advanced 0.9 percent in January-March from a year earlier after a 2 percent gain in the previous quarter, the Moscow-based Federal Statistics Service said in an e-mailed statement, providing its first estimate of first-quarter GDP. That was above the 0.7 percent median estimate of 19 economists in a Bloomberg survey. The Economy Ministry had projected that output expanded 0.8 percent.