Millions of Britons will be allowed to dabble in a risky form of cryptocurrency trading under fresh plans from the City watchdog to regulate digital assets, The Telegraph reported. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) on Tuesday said that retail investors will be permitted to access crypto borrowing services, where individuals trade assets such as Bitcoin that they have borrowed but do not actually own. Read more.

Greece completed an early repayment of €5.3bn in loans from its first eurozone bailout programme this week, EuroNews.com reported. The settlement of the debt, originally scheduled to mature after 2031 or even into the 2040s, marks a positive step in Greece’s decades-long effort to stabilise its public finances. Coordinated by the European Commission, the payment is a strong indication that the country is relying less on crisis-era debt and lowering the burden of future interest payments.

German insurers are the most exposed in Europe to illiquid corporate bonds, a top watchdog said in one of the most detailed reports to date on the industry’s investments in private credit. At €91.8 billion ($108 billion), more than 40% of German insurers’ bond holdings were in unlisted notes at the end of last year, the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority said on Monday in Frankfurt. Excluding index- or unit-linked investments, European insurers held about €1.2 trillion of corporate bonds, of which some 13% were illiquid or unlisted.

The U.K. economy contracted for a second straight month in October, cementing expectations that the Bank of England will lower its key interest rate later this week, the Wall Street Journal reported. Economic activity dipped 0.1% on month in October, the Office for National Statistics said Friday, after a 0.1% fall in September. Economists polled by The Wall Street Journal expected a 0.1% increase. The contraction in October makes a rate cut by the BOE at its next meeting on Thursday more likely, as concerns over growth mount.

After a stellar 2025, investors expect shares in European banks to keep heading higher in 2026, supported by strong earnings and, crucially, cost savings stemming from artificial intelligence, Reuters reported. As fears of a recession and interest rate cuts from the European Central Bank have subsided, investors have turned even more positive towards European banks, revising up their expectations for the sector, despite a complicated backdrop.

Austrian former property tycoon Rene Benko will appeal against his second conviction for insolvency-related fraud, his lawyer Norbert Wess said on Friday, Reuters reported. A court in his home city of Innsbruck handed Benko a 15-month suspended prison sentence and fined him 4,320 euros ($5,100) on Wednesday for hiding two luxury watches and four pairs of cuff links from creditors by keeping them inside a safe in the basement of a relative's house. However, the prosecution had sought a conviction based on 11 watches and 120,000 euros in cash found in that safe along with the cuff links.

A fund run by life sciences venture firm Apple Tree Partners filed for bankruptcy months after alleging that its Russian billionaire backer, Dmitry Rybolovlev, hasn’t met financing commitments because of liquidity problems at his family office, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. New York-based Apple Tree Life Sciences filed for chapter 11 reorganization Tuesday in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del., with assets of more than $1 billion and liabilities of less than $500,000.

Russia’s Central Bank has filed a lawsuit against Belgian financial institution Euroclear, the Brussels-based clearing house that holds most of Moscow’s frozen assets in Europe, the bank said Friday, the Associated Press reported. It wasn’t immediately clear what the lawsuit could achieve since it was filed in Moscow. The European Commission, the EU’s executive branch, estimates that 210 billion euros ($247 billion) worth of frozen Russian assets are held in Europe. At the end of September, Euroclear held around 193 billion euros ($225 billion) of the money.

A cross-party coalition of U.K. lawmakers has called on Chancellor Rachel Reeves to step in and ensure Britain’s regulatory framework for stablecoins doesn’t stifle innovation or drive capital overseas, warning that the Bank of England’s current proposals risk risks undermining the City of London's appeal as the global financial hub, CoinDesk.com reported. In a letter dated Dec.

Nationwide has been hit with a record fine after failing to spot a customer’s £27.3m furlough fraud, The Telegraph reported. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has ordered the British lender to pay £44m as a result of its failings, which included the incident during Covid. The City watchdog revealed in a ruling on Friday that a Nationwide customer deposited £26m into their current account over the space of eight days, having received 24 furlough payments totalling £27.3m over 13 months. HMRC was able to recover £26.5m from the fraud, but roughly £800,000 remains unaccounted for.