Russia’s central bank has warned that Russia’s consumer lending sector threatens the country’s “financial stability”, the same day that it revoked the licence of Master Bank, a midsized retail lender, the Financial Times reported. Addressing the Russian Duma, central bank head Elvira Nabiullina reiterated the need for setting a maximum interest rate level for consumer loans due to growing concerns of a bubble in the sector.

Dutch telecoms group KPN said on Tuesday that it had reached a tentative agreement to pay 50 million euros ($67.6 million) to settle litigation related to the bankruptcy of its former joint venture KPNQwest, Reuters reported. KPNQwest, a wholesale fibre-optic telecoms venture between U.S. phone carrier Qwest, since acquired by CenturyLink, and KPN for corporate customers, was listed in 1999 but went bankrupt in 2002 after the telecoms and technology bubble burst. The trustees accused KPNQwest of mismanagement and held its shareholders liable for damages. It had been seeking 2.2 billion euros.

When liquidators closed the books on the Bank of Credit and Commerce International case in May, a 21-year-old scandal that shook the global financial system and ensnared arms dealers, dictators and even the CIA appeared to be over. Earlier this month, however, creditors of the failed bank got the go-ahead from a judge in Luxembourg to partially reopen the case and make one last attempt to collect $326 million from Saudi Arabia, The Wall Street Journal Middle East Real Time blog reported.

Italian banks are preparing to sell nearly a quarter of their problem loans by 2017 thanks to a balance sheet clean-up spearheaded by the Bank of Italy that is tempting specialist investors back into the market, Reuters reported. Bad debts held by Italian banks have doubled since 2010 to 145 billion euros ($196 billion), a product of the country's longest recession in 60 years. But this has also exacerbated the country's economic plight as banks have had to set aside more cash for bad loans rather than lend to companies and consumers.

The research churned out by the Bank of England’s financial-stability wing usually focuses on where strange new risks might lurk in the financial system, or how to safely dismantle stricken banks, The Wall Street Journal Brussels Beat blog reported. A new paper, published Tuesday, instead takes aim at how authorities deal with stricken countries, and suggests that repayment terms of government bonds should be linked to a country’s economic performance.

The taxpayer will step in to cover half of a private pension fund if both the pension fund and the employer become insolvent, the Irish Examiner reported. New pensions rules being brought forward by the government will see the State cover half of the deficit in a pension fund if the employer is closing down. The rules are an attempt to avoid a repeat of the Waterford Crystal case where workers had to go to the European Court of Justice to secure their pensions.

The staggering tax burden is a big part of the reason Italy's output has grown the least over the last decade of any of the 34 countries in the Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation, The Wall Street Journal reported. Now with the economy still sputtering and jobless rates at their highest since the 1970s, there is growing apprehension at home and abroad that Italy's tax model is crushing the country's prospects for recovery.

The special liquidators of Irish Bank Resolution Corporation yesterday offered the final tranche of loans for sale to interested parties. The loans form part of Project Stone, a €9.3 billion portfolio of loans that has been put up for sale, the Irish Times reported. These are believed to include borrowings held by successful businessman Denis O’Brien, and financier Niall McFadden, along with loans connected with the Blackrock Clinic.

Russian state-controlled bank VTB has agreed to join other creditors in restructuring mining group Mechel's $9.6 billion debt, a source close to VTB said on Saturday, Reuters reported. The coal-to-steel group, controlled by Igor Zyuzin, borrowed heavily to pay for acquisitions even after the 2008-2009 global economic slump, leaving it dangerously exposed to a global industrial downturn. VTB had been resisting a restructuring deal in which Mechel wanted a waiver of loan covenants and delays to its debt repayments, bankers familiar with the negotiations say.

The European Union confronted the euro area’s biggest economies over their spending plans for next year as austerity demands restrain the bloc’s recovery from the longest recession in its history, Bloomberg reported. The EU said that Germany, Europe’s largest economy, has made “no progress” in following recommendations to spur domestic demand, that Spain’s budget risked missing deficit targets and that Italy’s 2014 plan was in danger of breaching debt-reduction rules.