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World Bank officials have told South Africa’s government it will need to reduce its wage bill to secure a loan and that it doesn’t want the money to be used to bail out insolvent state companies, a person familiar with the situation said, Bloomberg News reported.12 Those demands have stalled negotiations on the loan that began in April, the person said, asking not to be identified because the content of the discussions have not been made public.

ANA Holdings Inc. forecast its biggest-ever operating loss of 505 billion yen ($4.8 billion) for the fiscal year through March 2021, the latest airline to face an existential threat to its business due to the pandemic, Bloomberg News reported.…The outlook issued by ANA calls for a wider full-year loss than the 376 billion yen analysts were projecting on average, according to estimates compiled by Bloomberg. ANA also forecast 740 billion yen in revenue for the fiscal year through March, compared with analysts’ average prediction for 926 billion yen.

President Jair Bolsonaro’s stimulus spending spree won praise far and wide for saving Brazilians from the worst of the pandemic’s economic pain. But now, as the worst of the health crisis eases, anxiety is mounting in financial circles about how he’s going to pay for it, Bloomberg News reported. Investors have been unloading the currency and stocks, sparking routs that are almost unparalleled in the world this year, and they’re increasingly refusing to buy anything but the shortest of short-term government bonds.

Banks are pulling back from lending to European businesses and households as they braced themselves for a rise in bad loans due to the economic impact of the pandemic, a European Central Bank survey has shown, the Financial Times reported.

As Chinese official slogans go, “one bank, one policy” may lack the revolutionary fervor of “let a hundred flowers bloom” or “smash the four olds.” But don’t be fooled by the bureaucratic banality of this mantra recently adopted by China’s banking regulator. Its patchwork one-bank, one-policy approach to a cascade of regional bank failures could trigger a wider financial crisis in the world’s second largest economy, Bloomberg News reported in a commentary.

The proportion of emerging market high-yield companies who have seen their liquidity position weaken in September has climbed back to June’s record high, with firms in Latin America driving the overall increase, Moody’s said in a research report, Reuters reported. The reading of Moody’s emerging markets liquidity stress indicator returned to an all-time high of 25.8% last month - up 1 percentage point from August and compared with its long-term average of just under 20%, Moody’s found. A rising trend indicates upward pressure on default rates.

Sovereign default risks are on course to rise further in 2021, with Iraq, Sri Lanka, Angola and Gabon at high probability of default, say Goldman Sachs analysts, Reuters reported. Five sovereign debt defaults or distressed debt exchanges - in which investors swap their debt for new bonds, often with longer maturities and a reduced value - have already happened in 2020 in the aftermath of the COVID-19 crisis, the most in around two decades.

Nearly 200 airports in Europe will face insolvency in the coming months if passenger traffic does not start recovering by the end of the year, airports body ACI Europe said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. An estimated 193 European hubs are considered “at-risk airports”, ACI said, adding that they contribute to economic activity that creates 277,000 jobs and 12.4 billion euros ($14.66 billion) of European GDP.

The municipality of Amsterdam is introducing a pause button for people with problematic debts, AlKhaleej Today reported. This measure prevents them from receiving direct debits and reminders until a payment process has been found with the help of a debt counselor. Amsterdam hopes with this measure to offer peace of mind to people who are in debt. “Debts lead to a lot of stress. People in debt lose their jobs more often and often have more relationship stress. Financial problems can even lead to a decrease in IQ”, says Alderman Marjolein Moorman.

South Africa’s Treasury is likely to announce additional funding for the state arms company and a government-owned agricultural lender in this week’s budget, people familiar with the situation said, Bloomberg News reported. Denel SOC Ltd., which makes attack helicopters and other weapons, will probably receive between 2 billion rand ($123 million) and 3 billion rand, the people said, asking not to be identified because the information hasn’t been made public. The Land and Agricultural Development Bank of South Africa will get 1.5 billion rand to 2 billion rand, the two people said.