Headlines

The chief executive of the Irish League of Credit Unions, Ed Farrell, is “quietly confident” that there won’t be a repeat of events at Rush Credit Union (RCU), which was placed into liquidation recently following the emergence of a €4.7 million hole in its reserves and alleged criminal activities. “I don’t think that if we are here this time next year that there will be any contagion,” he told the Irish Times when discussing ILCU’s results for last year.“The credit union family would feel let down by it . . .

A rapid recovery in the euro and Italian bonds in the wake of the nation’s failed referendum hasn’t convinced investors that they are immune to political risks, Bloomberg News reported. Parity between the euro and dollar and a near-doubling of the yield on Italy’s 10-year bonds would be “totally possible” if new elections were held, said Indosuez Wealth Management chief economist Marie Owens Thomsen. Such a situation would make both assets an obvious sell, according to Aberdeen Asset Management Plc’s James Athey. Janus Capital Group Inc.

The Reserve Bank of India unexpectedly left its main interest rate unchanged on Wednesday, citing global financial markets volatility, while it cut its growth forecast, in the first official assessment of a government decision to scrap most of the cash in circulation. The central bank’s monetary policy committee, headed by Gov. Urjit Patel, left the main interest rate unchanged at 6.25%. Four of five economists interviewed by The Wall Street Journal last week said they expected the RBI to cut its main rate by at least 0.25 percentage point.

Debt-ridden Mozambique has no chance of meeting its year-end deadline for a restructuring deal, according to investors who are preparing to dig in their heels until the country comes clear on what it owes and to whom, Reuters reported. The southern African country, one of the world's poorest, has seen its currency and investor confidence collapse since April, when the International Monetary Fund halted a loan after uncovering previously undisclosed debts that had not been approved by parliament.

Italian banking shares strengthened on Tuesday on expectation that the European Central Bank will extend its quantitative easing programme when its governing council meets on Thursday in Frankfurt, the Irish Times reported. Amid reports that Italy’s third-largest bank, Monte dei Paschi di Siena, may be preparing for a state bailout, the European Central Bank is expected to signal that it will extend its asset-purchase programme beyond March 2017.

A U.S. subsidiary of Spanish renewable energy firm Abengoa SA pressed a judge on Tuesday to approve its plan to exit bankruptcy over objections from a holdout creditor, who said the plan violated U.S. law by favoring the company's foreign parent, Reuters reported. After more than three hours of testimony and arguments, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Carey in Wilmington, Delaware, said he wanted additional written submissions from the parties. He did not say when he would rule. Abeinsa Holding Inc is one of dozens of global Abengoa subsidiaries that filed for U.S.

Events are testing the eurozone yet again. The latest shock comes from Italy, where Matteo Renzi’s comprehensive defeat in the constitutional referendum has caused his resignation. Italy, which has the eurozone’s third-largest economy, is an important country. Mr Renzi’s departure may not prove a decisive event. But, so long as the eurozone fails to deliver widely shared prosperity, it will be vulnerable to political and economic shocks. Complacency is a grave error. Read more. (Subscription required.)

President Michel Temer moved to lift Brazil’s retirement age to 65 from an average of about 54 as he tried to shore up market confidence in his government by reforming one of the world’s most generous social security systems, the Financial Times reported. The pension plan, presented to Congress on Tuesday, is an attempt by Mr Temer to regain the initiative after several weeks of scandals, protests and poor economic data that have threatened to loosen the president’s grip on power.

The European Central Bank may run out of room to buy Irish Government bonds within weeks under its massive €1.7 trillion quantitative easing programme if its president, Mario Draghi, does not move on Thursday to ease the terms of the plan, according to analysts, the Irish Times reported. Cantor Fitzgerald’s head of fixed income strategy in Dublin, Ryan McGrath estimates that the ECB, Irish Central Bank and other euro-zone monetary authorities currently hold about €31.34 billion of eligible Irish bonds under the quantitative easing plan.

The European Union’s Brexit point man signaled an uncompromising stance on talks, laying out a tight timetable for the U.K.’s exit from the bloc and sticking to its warning that the country couldn’t freely pick and choose its future relationship with the bloc, The Wall Street Journal reported. In his first public comments since taking the job, Michel Barnier kept up the pressure on U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May, who has suggested her country wants both migration control and economic access—a stance many in the EU say is unrealistic. Mrs.