Sotiris Katselos, a soft-spoken 24-year-old who can code in four computer languages, got a job with a tech-support company here last year thanks to a new government program that covered his entire salary for five months. But the subsidy ended in February and so did his job, The Wall Street Journal reported. "They didn't really need anyone," he says. Since then, he has been sending out his résumé, which includes four years of vocational school, but with no luck. Struggling euro-zone countries are counting on programs like the one used by Mr.

Bank of Ireland was singled out for criticism by the head of the Insolvency Service of Ireland (ISI) Lorcan O’Connor at an Oireachtas hearing yesterday for adopting a “very blunt” approach in its dealings with distressed borrowers, the Irish Times reported. While he did not name the bank, it was clear Mr O’Connor’s criticism referred to comments made to the committee by Bank of Ireland chief executive Richie Boucher earlier this month when he said his bank would veto any proposal from Personal Insolvency Practitioners (PIP) featuring mortgage write-down.

Barclays Plc will next week announce the creation of a bad bank portfolio of assets it deems non-core that it intends to sell or run down as part of a streamlining of its investment bank, a person familiar with the matter said on Tuesday, Reuters reported.Last year, Barclays Chief Executive Antony Jenkins announced a portfolio of assets termed Exit Quadrant, that it aimed to get rid of; and these assets are likely to go in the non-core portfolio along with commodities assets following last week's decision by the bank to exit that business, the Financial Times said.

Inspectors from the EU/IMF troika have arrived back in Dublin to scrutinise the Government’s execution of the budget and its delivery of bailout reforms, the Irish Times reported. The inspectors were in Merrion Street last night for scheduled talks with Minister for Finance Michael Noonan, their first since Ireland left the rescue programme last December. The visit continues until the end of the week.

Global banks from Deutsche Bank AG to Credit Suisse Group AG are urging international regulators to rethink a liquidity rule they say risks harming the market for repurchase agreements and pushing up governments’ borrowing costs, Bloomberg News reported. Draft plans from the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, aimed at ensuring banks obtain more of their funding from stable sources, also risk penalizing lenders that invest in securitized debt, according to consultation responses submitted by the industry.

More than two-thirds of long-term mortgage arrears in the buy-to-let sector stem from cheap tracker loans rather than high-cost variable-rate mortgages, the Irish Times reported. The finding, contained in a study by the Central Bank, is likely to reignite concern that a significant portion of property investors are strategically defaulting on their mortgage loans in hope of gaining concessions from lenders.

The number of people going insolvent in England and Wales edged up by 2.5% in the first quarter of this year, as experts warned there is still "no light at the end of the tunnel" for many families despite the recovering economy, the Belfast Telegraph reported. Some 24,931 individual insolvencies were recorded over the latest three-month period, which is 2.5% higher than the fourth quarter of 2013 but is still 0.3% down on the same period a year ago. A growing number of people going bankrupt helped to push up the figures.

Austria's Verbund has offered to sell its stake in troubled Italian energy group Sorgenia as part of a debt restructuring plan with creditor banks, a spokeswoman for the state-owned utility said on Monday. "It's about sharing the burden... We are waiting for offers," the spokeswoman told Reuters. Loss-making Sorgenia, 52 percent controlled by Italian holding company CIR, has run up 1.8 billion euros ($2.5 billion) of debt - 600 million euros of which must be cleared to keep it afloat in the short term.

Britain’s major lenders will have to demonstrate they can weather a brutal housing market slump under Bank of England stress tests to be unveiled on Tuesday, the Financial Times reported. The BoE’s Prudential Regulation Authority will disclose details of its scenarios alongside a broader EU-wide exercise aimed at gauging the health of major banks. Under the PRA’s scenario declines of about 35 per cent in residential property prices are expected to be triggered by a sharp rise in interest rates from the current 0.5 per cent level.

European Central Bank President Mario Draghi told German lawmakers that a quantitative-easing program isn’t imminent and is relatively unlikely for now, according to a euro-area official present at the meeting, Bloomberg reported. The central bank stands ready to embark on QE if needed, Draghi said at the gathering attended by lawmakers from parties that form the nation’s coalition government, the official told reporters yesterday. The person declined to be identified because the meeting in Koenigswinter, Germany, was private.