Portugal's banks have set aside enough money to cover bad debts and are holding enough capital to weather any deterioration of their loan portfolios, the country's central bank said Friday, summing up its review of their loan books, The Wall Street Journal reported. Bank of Portugal said the group of eight lenders had a core Tier 1 capital ratio of 11.2% as of April 30, above the 10% minimum established by the bank.

Siemens AG (SIE)’s credit rating was downgraded by Fitch Ratings, which cited an accelerating decline in the company’s margins in the most recent quarter and “insufficient progress” on restructuring measures, Bloomberg reported. The long-term debt of Europe’s largest engineering company was cut to A from A+ with a stable outlook, Fitch said today in a statement. That’s the sixth-highest investment grade. Munich-based Siemens’s appointment of Joe Kaeser as Chief Executive Officer is a “positive development,” it said.

Eurozone-bound Latvia is scrambling to defend the reputation of its banking sector amid allegations it is becoming an easy access tax haven, and even a money laundering hub, France 24 reported on an Agence France-Presse story. Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis has flatly denied that the ex-Soviet Baltic state has the makings of an offshore paradise along the lines of troubled Cyprus, with its hefty Russian deposits.

The number of corporate insolvencies increased by 20% in Scotland in the second quarter, in a sign that conditions remain tough for many businesses, The Herald Scotland reported. However, the number of firms going into some form of insolvency proceeding fell by 58% compared to the same quarter last year. Figures compiled by the official Insolvency Service show there were 197 corporate insolvency proceedings in Scotland in the three months to June, up from 164 in the first quarter.

France's stagnant economy has thwarted most of President François Hollande's economic plans, leaving him reliant on state-sponsored jobs to deliver his key remaining objective: curbing rising unemployment by the end of the year, The Wall Street Journal reported. A primary vehicle for government efforts to buoy the job market is the financing of up to 75% of the cost of thousands of jobs for young, low-skilled workers. Over 40,000 youths have been channeled into such jobs so far this year, and the government predicts that number to rise to 100,000 by the end of December.

Britain could soon start selling its stake in Lloyds Banking Group after the country's largest retail bank accelerated a turnaround and flagged a return to payouts for shareholders, Reuters reported. Prime Minister David Cameron is keen to show that Britain's part-nationalised lenders are on the mend, and a profitable sale of part of the state's 39 percent stake in Lloyds would allow him to claim at least partial success. Royal Bank of Scotland, the other bank Britain bailed out with billions of pounds of taxpayers' money during the 2008 financial crisis, is still struggling to recover.

Rolling stock repair and refurbishment company Railcare was placed in administration on July 31, with restructuring partners Kim Rayment, Ian Gould and Bryan Jackson from BDO appointed joint administrators, the Railway Gazette reported.

IVG Immobilien AG (IVG) is examining whether it qualifies for a court-supervised restructuring after the debt-laden German real estate company’s creditors failed to offer an alternative by yesterday’s deadline, a person with knowledge of the matter said, Bloomberg reported. IVG hired a law firm that will determine whether the Bonn-based company meets the criteria for a “Schutzschirmverfahren,” Germany’s equivalent of the U.S. Chapter 11 bankruptcy, said the person, who asked not to be named because the information is private.

The Bank of England and its new governor Mark Carney will put the finishing touches to a fresh approach to nurturing Britain's nascent economic recovery on Thursday, when the central bank wraps up a policy meeting, Reuters reported. But financial markets will probably have wait a few more days before getting details of the long-awaited steer on how long interest rates are likely to stay at their record low. At his Bank first policy meeting nearly a month ago, Carney surprised investors with a warning that they were pricing in a rate hike too soon.

The Economic Affairs Committee has called for an “urgent review” of the UK’s corporate tax regime, greater parliamentary oversight of HMRC and stricter regulation of tax advisers, economia reported. In its report today the cross-party Economic Affairs Committee said it was “unclear” that the global tax reforms proposed by the OECD went far enough to tackle tax avoidance. It urged government to conduct its own review now, rather than wait for the OECD recommendations due in two years time.