The Bank of France reported a widening loss in 2024 after booking one-off gains the previous year and as it continues to digest rapid changes in the European Central Bank’s monetary policy in recent years, Bloomberg News reported. Like other central banks in the euro-area network, France’s is squeezed between servicing deposits at the high interest rates imposed on the economy to fight inflation and only small income flows from bonds purchased when borrowing costs were low.

Trade uncertainty is weighing on the European economy and any boost from investment in defense will take time, meaning the European Central Bank may need to keep cutting rates, rate setter Olli Rehn said, the Wall Street Journal reported. “As regards trade policy, the effect is fairly immediate because of pervasive uncertainty,” said Rehn, governor of the Finnish central bank, in a livestream hosted by MNI on Tuesday.

Weaknesses in the capital regime for the Swiss banking sector still need to be addressed after the 2023 collapse of Credit Suisse, the Swiss National Bank said on Tuesday, backing government efforts to make the industry more robust, Reuters reported. Switzerland has pledged to introduce stricter banking regulations in response to the demise of Credit Suisse, which was subsequently taken over by its old rival UBS. At the centre of proposals set out by the government last year is that UBS should hold more capital to make it more robust and prevent a repeat of the Credit Suisse meltdown.

The UK Labour government announced it would save billions of pounds a year by slashing welfare spending, unveiling controversial reforms which have provoked criticism from disability campaigners and divided Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s governing party, Bloomberg News reported. The government will toughen the criteria that sick and disabled people must meet to qualify for Personal Independence Payments (PIPs), a key benefit aimed at helping people with disabilities go about their daily lives, Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall told the House of Commons on Tuesday.

Appeal judges have approved emergency funding allowing Thames Water to access as much as £3 billion ($3.9 billion) and stave off temporary nationalization, Bloomberg News reported. The UK’s Court of Appeal dismissed a challenge to the proposed loan after a three-day hearing last week. The decision should give the beleaguered utility access to much needed funds and prevent a messy insolvency while it seeks a long term fix for its financial woes. The debt will be provided by a group of senior creditors — including Elliott Management, Silver Point and Pimco.

Germany is witnessing a significant rise in corporate bankruptcies, with 2024 marking a 22.4% increase in insolvency filings compared to the previous year, the Munich Eye reported. This surge has raised concerns among experts, with predictions of an impending wave of insolvencies in 2025 potentially surpassing those seen during the financial crisis of 2009. According to the Federal Statistical Office, February alone saw a 12.1% increase in bankruptcy filings compared to the same month in the previous year.

Most households in England will be charged the maximum increase in council tax for the third consecutive year after local authorities confirmed their plans before the 2025-26 financial year, The Guardian reported. Nearly nine in 10 (88%) of 153 upper-tier authorities in England will impose a 4.99% increase in April, the most allowed without triggering a local referendum. If councils increasing bills by 4.5% or more this year are included in the tally, the proportion rises to more than nine in 10 (94%), according to analysis by the PA news agency.

Rachel Reeves has defended her fiscal rules and pledged to bring down government borrowing, as the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer faces dissent from Labour party colleagues opposed to cuts to welfare payments and government spending, Bloomberg News reported. “When we’re spending £100 billion ($130 billion) a year on servicing government debt, I don’t think anyone could seriously argue that we don’t need to get a grip of government borrowing and government debt,” Reeves said in an interview with Bloomberg TV on Monday.