Headlines

Bankia will look to fortify its balance sheet in 2016 through the issuance of subordinated debt instruments including Additional Tier 1, signalling another step forward for the bailed-out Spanish lender, Reuters reported. "There is no urgency and I don't foresee issuing capital this year, but we could issue an Additional Tier 1 and further Tier 2 next year," said Lennart de Jong, funding director at the bank. While Bankia has already tapped the Tier 2 market as part of its comprehensive overhaul, it has not yet sold an AT1 bond - the riskiest type of bank debt.

As representatives of Greece’s international creditors started arriving on Wednesday in the Greek capital for a new round of tough negotiations, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said the country would get relief from its huge debt burden as early as November. He also hit out at dissenters within his party, saying that securing a new bailout deal was a priority, the International New York Times reported. Amid growing opposition within his leftist Syriza party over the prospect of fresh austerity required under Greece’s third financial rescue in five years, Mr.

Chinese shares bounced back more than 3 percent on Wednesday, as Beijing's latest efforts to prop up values restored a measure of stability to its unruly stock market, the International New York Times reported. After a dramatic plunge of more than 8 percent in Chinese stocks on Monday, China's securities regulator announced probes into share "dumping" and pledged to buy stocks to calm the market, while the central bank hinted at more policy easing.

The head of the International Monetary Fund on Wednesday signaled the emergency lender will likely approve a bailout payment for Ukraine despite the failure of Kiev to secure a debt restructuring deal with creditors, The Wall Street Journal reported. IMF staff have already given preliminary approval of the tranche as Kiev moves ahead with promised budget cuts and economic overhauls, but the executive board still needs to give the final green light at a meeting scheduled for Friday.

Major banks and brokers have failed to make sufficient internal changes following the Libor and foreign exchange rigging scandals, according to the City regulator, The Guardian reported. The Financial Conduct Authority also warned that more action was needed to restore trust in the financial markets after visiting 12 firms and brokers as a follow-up exercise to the fines imposed for rigging Libor, the benchmark exchange rate. The FCA found that none of them had made all the changes required to comply with guidelines for setting prices.

Bank Insolvency Act amendments aimed at allowing easier access of creditors to information related to the insolvency proceedings passed second reading in Parliament on Wednesday, the Sofia News Agency reported. Under the newly adopted provisions, the list of creditors who have submitted claims against a bank undergoing insolvency proceedings will be published in the Business Register. The amendments to the Bank Insolvency Act were backed by 91 MPs, with no votes against and two abstentions.

Poland is again trying to persuade power firms to take direct stakes in troubled coal company Kompania Weglowa as launching a fund to help the miner would take too long, Rzeczpospolita daily said on Wednesday. The Polish government is working hard to keep the European Union's biggest coal miner alive as its bankruptcy would leave thousands of potential voters without jobs ahead of a general election in October.

Instability continued to roil China’s stock markets on Tuesday in spite of new pledges of support from the government, the International New York Times reported. Coming off its biggest one-day decline since 2007, Shanghai’s main share index seesawed throughout Tuesday — falling as much as 5 percent as trading opened and rising 1 percent at one point — to end down 1.7 percent. The precarious display on China’s bourses after several weeks of relatively calm movements has shaken global financial markets.

Dubai-based real estate agency S&K Estate Agents said a deteriorating property market in the emirate contributed to its decision to file for bankruptcy and be liquidated, Reuters reported. "Simply put, the revenue being generated by the business drastically reduced over the first half of 2015, without enough income to cover operational costs," S&K said in an emailed statement released through a public relations firm. The company said its reputation had suffered from client complaints and a recruitment drive did not yield results quickly enough to save the business.

Countries should be able to exit the euro as a “last resort” if they are unable to manage their debts, the German government’s independent economic advisers say, in a sign of Berlin’s hardening attitude towards propping up fellow members of the single currency, the Financial Times reported.The mere suggestion of a country leaving what was supposed to be an irreversible currency union had long been taboo. But Germany’s finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, broke it two weeks ago by suggesting a possible five-year eurozone “timeout” for Greece.