By the numbers, Hungary is not Greece. Its budget deficit is about one-half that of Greece. It lies outside the euro zone and so could, if pressed, lift exports by devaluing its currency, the forint. Most crucial, it is in the midst of an economic overhaul with the International Monetary Fund and can call upon an additional $2 billion if needed. But that did not prevent the politically charged comments made last week by senior Hungarian officials from sending world markets into a tailspin on Friday, The New York Times reported in an analysis.

Private equity house Carlyle Group is the frontrunner to buy about 700 million pounds ($1.03 billion) worth of London offices linked to the failed White Tower commercial mortgage-backed securitisation (CMBS), a source close to the discussions told Reuters. Carlyle is in advanced talks to buy the Thames Portfolio that comprises five of the assets supporting the 1.15 billion pounds White Tower 2006-3 CMBS, which defaulted in July 2009 after a sharp correction in UK commercial property prices.

Fiscal indiscipline has shaken the euro zone to its foundations. But another failing appears to be taking the euro zone's debt crisis into another worrying phase: the weakness of many of the region's banks, The Wall Street Journal’s Brussels Beat blog reported in an analysis. Since the crisis started, most of the blame for the crisis has fallen on profligate governments such as Greece. Much less attention has been directed towards a different cast of characters: those governments that have failed to take charge of their banking systems.

CajaSur, a 146-year-old regional savings bank founded and controlled by the Catholic Church—but run in partnership with the area's regional and local governments, local unions and the bank's clientele—was among a group of small savings banks, known as cajas, that fueled Spain's heady housing boom over the last decade with liberal lending practices to developers and homeowners alike. Today, however, that boom has gone bust amid a tidal wave of bad loans in a country plagued by rapidly growing government debt and high unemployment.

Group of 20 finance ministers are set to delay the implementation of tougher regulations for the world’s banks as splits emerge over the scope of the new regulations, the Financial Times reported. Officials and ministers from the G20 group of industrialised nations, meeting in Busan, South Korea, acknowledged there were still big differences on the “Basel III” proposals that are due to be finalised by November. The disagreements cover the scale, scope and timing of the increases in capital and liquidity banks will be required to hold, as well as the leverage they will be allowed.

Hungary’s economy is in a “very grave situation,” a government official said, adding to concern about Europe’s sovereign debt crisis, hurting U.S. stock futures and sending the forint to a 12-month low, BusinessWeek reported on a Bloomberg story. “It’s clear that the economy is in a very grave situation,” Peter Szijjarto, spokesman for Prime Minister Viktor Orban, said today in Budapest.

Reinsurers have bumped up prices for offshore energy-related insurance premiums by 50 percent following insurance industry losses of up to $3.5 billion from the BP plc oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, Moody's Investor Service said in a report on Thursday, Reuters reported. Total insured losses from the worst oil spill in U.S. history are expected to be between $1.4 billion and $3.5 billion, although losses would be significantly higher if BP had purchased liability insurance instead of self-insuring its risks through its captive insurance programme, said Moody's.

TNK-BP, a joint venture between Britain's BP and a group of Russian billionaires, said on Thursday that its unit which holds the license to the vast Kovykta gas field had filed for bankruptcy, Agence France-Presse reported. TNK-BP said the RUSIA Petroleum unit is unable to pay off debts to its parent company. "The current financial situation precludes RUSIA Petroleum from timely repayment of its loans to TNK-BP Group," the company said in a statement. The loans were made to the subsidiary to finance the development of the vast Kovykta gas field, it said.

As the European Union's executive arm introduced a raft of policy ideas aimed at improving management of banks, European governments weighed in with proposals that illustrate ongoing tensions between national and international efforts at financial regulation, The Wall Street Journal reported. The swirl of sometimes contradictory proposals to stave off future financial crises came out of Europe ahead of a meeting this week of finance ministers of the Group of 20 leading economies to discuss financial regulation in Busan, South Korea.

Department store chain Karstadt's insolvency administrator has met with German retailer Metro, a spokesman for the adminstrator said on Wednesday, The Guardian reported on a Reuters story. Metro has said repeatedly over the past year it could be interested in acquiring some of Karstadt's 120 stores to beef up Kaufhof, which it wants to sell to focus on the its wholesale cash & carry and its consumer electronics business. The spokesman was responding to a report from German newspaper publisher WAZ-Mediengruppe that Metro was in talks over Karstadt.