Headlines

Individuals in Kazakhstan unable to pay off their loans will be declared bankrupts, the country’s Pesident Nursultan Nazarbayev said when speaking at the extended sitting of the Government Tengrinews.kz reported today. “Borrowers must pay off their loans either in monetary form or through foreclosure of their property," Nazarbayev said. The Government should teach Kazakhstan’s citizens to pay off loans, Tengrinews.kz reported in April, citing the country’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev as saying.

Crédit Agricole SA said that it was "cheated" and kept in the dark about Banco Espírito Santo SA 's dealings with its troubled parent company, after the crisis facing the Portuguese lender nearly wiped away all of the French bank's profit in the second quarter, the Wall Street Journal reported today.

Portugal’s rescue of Banco Espirito Santo SA may have eased some doubts about Europe’s banking industry by showing investors how the European Union’s thinking has evolved on handling failing lenders, Bloomberg News reported today. The decision shielding some creditors spurred a rally in bank stocks and Portuguese assets yesterday as it demonstrated authorities were able to shutter a bank without sparking a fresh bout of market tensions that have roiled Europe since 2009.

Ghana Finance Minister Seth Terkper said that the country wants to sign an agreement with the International Monetary Fund as soon as possible, helping reduce borrowing costs for the government, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. Slumping gold and cocoa prices eroded steps taken to narrow the budget gap and made targets to cut the deficit “too ambitious,” Terkper said. The IMF program will include support for balance of payments, he said.

China's overseas borrowings are leaving the country increasingly vulnerable to a rise in U.S. interest rates, potentially creating funding problems for some companies and tighter conditions for the financial system overall, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The world's second-largest economy largely rode out the 2008 global financial crisis, shielded in part by a surge in domestic bank lending and capital controls that protected it from a sharp reversal in global money flows.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) left its benchmark lending rate unchanged Tuesday, but acknowledged progress in its fight to rid Asia's third-largest economy from the plight of high inflation and pledged to cut rates as soon as possible, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The Indian central bank kept its overnight lending rate steady at 8 percent for its third policy meeting in a row. The RBI also reduced the minimum government bondholding rule—the statutory liquidity ratio—for banks by 0.50 percentage point to 22 percent with effect from the two weeks starting on Saturday.

The U.S. judge overseeing a court battle that led Argentina to default on a $539 million interest payment last week ordered the nation and a group of U.S. hedge funds to keep talking in a bid to resolve the crisis, Bloomberg News reported on Friday. U.S. District Judge Thomas Griesa also said on Friday that he won’t replace a court-appointed mediator, after a lawyer for Argentina said it “no longer has confidence” in the negotiation process led by McCarter & English LLP partner Daniel Pollack.

Portugal’s central bank stepped up efforts to clean up the troubled lender Banco Espírito Santo and end its family control after the bank reported a stunning first-half loss of $4.8 billion that will force it to raise more capital, the International New York Times reported. After the bank’s earnings report, the central bank issued a statement ordering Banco Espírito Santo to raise more funds and announced the suspension of three members of the Espírito Santo family, which has controlled the bank for generations.

Argentina’s debt saga has been dragging on for more than 12 years and, with the country slipping back into default on Wednesday, it is far from over. Hopes remain that a deal with the private sector can still be reached, the Financial Times reported. A last-minute proposal by a group of Argentine banks collapsed behind the scenes shortly after economy minister Axel Kicillof announced that the “vulture funds” had rejected the government’s offer. But other proposals are in the works, according to local media.

Britain’s Serious Fraud Office said on Thursday that it had reached a second settlement in a series of civil claims brought by two brothers after a flawed investigation into the collapse of the Icelandic bank Kaupthing during the financial crisis, the International New York Times DealBook blog reported.