Headlines

China's major banks have halted an experimental program, sanctioned by the country's central bank, that helped citizens transfer large sums overseas despite government capital controls, according to people with knowledge of the matter, The Wall Street Journal reported. The halt, which the people said was likely to be temporary, comes after the program was criticized by China's powerful state television broadcaster, underscoring the political sensitivity of the issue of wealthy Chinese moving money abroad.

Greece has beaten its target for its primary budget surplus for the first six months of the year, data from the Finance Ministry showed Monday, The Wall Street Journal reported. In a statement, the ministry said the primary budget surplus, which doesn't take into account interest payments, reached €712 million ($969.9 million), compared with a €1.5 billion deficit during the first half of 2014. The figure surpassed the government's target of a €635 million deficit. "The fiscal targets are being reached for a third consecutive year," said Deputy Finance Minister Christos Staikouras.

One of Bulgaria’s biggest banks faces bankruptcy proceedings after the country’s central bank reported that documentation covering the bulk of its loan portfolio was missing, while sacks of cash containing millions of lev had been removed from its vaults, the Financial Times reported. Ivan Iskrov, the central bank governor, said on Friday the banking licence of Corporate Commercial Bank was being revoked, while its healthy assets and liabilities would be transferred to Crédit Agricole Bulgaria, a Corpbank subsidiary that will be nationalised.

Mario Draghi’s newest stimulus tool will hand banks more than 700 billion euros ($950 billion) of cheap funding, economists say, Bloomberg News reported. The European Central Bank president’s targeted lending program for banks will boost credit for the real economy as planned, and at the same time help keep the financial system flush with cash, according to the Bloomberg Monthly Survey of 45 economists. Draghi may address the topic today when he testifies at the European Parliament in Strasbourg for the first time since elections in May.

The London High Court is convening a meeting of creditors of Russia’s aluminum giant RUSAL to vote on a scheme of arrangement of restructuring the company’s $5.15 billion debt, RUSAL said in a statement on Friday. RUSAL, which is the world’s largest aluminum producer, has earlier applied to the London and Jersey courts for the first time in Russia’s corporate history for debt restructuring after failing to win unanimous support from its creditors, the ITAR-TASS News Agency reported. The date of holding the creditors’ meeting was not specified in the statement.

Junior iron-ore company Sherwin Iron went into a trading halt on Friday as the company entered voluntary administration after failing to secure financing, Mining Weekly reported. Sherwin had previously warned shareholders of the need to secure capital in order to fund its short-term and medium-term obligations, with the junior relying on A$10-million cash being held in escrow under its major debt facility, after a share purchase plan and rights issue failed to raise the necessary funding.

A Netherlands-based subsidiary of Brazilian tycoon Eike Batista's bankrupt shipbuilding and shipleasing unit OSX Brasil SA suspended payments to creditors after being granted protection by a Dutch court, Reuters reported. According to a securities filing on Thursday, OSX sought protection for its OSX WHP 1&2 Leasing BV unit after an unnamed "alleged creditor" asked a court to order payment in a way that threatened OSX's obligations to other creditors.

Ponderosa Golf and Country Club in Peachland has money woes, again. The original Ponderosa fell into receivership years ago and was revived by Ponderosa Peachland Development, The Daily Courier reported. The new Ponderosa calls for a $1 billion master-planned community with an 18-hole course designed by Greg Norman (already open) surrounded by 2,300 homes. Showhomes are open and construction was under way on other homes. But work has halted with the new Ponderosa reaching an impasse with Toronto-based Romspen Investment Corp. over the $34.4 million Ponderosa owes Romspen.

Investors received a jolt on Thursday when shares of Portugal’s second-largest bank, Banco Espírito Santo, were suspended from trading, prompting fears that the bank might need to be rescued, the International New York Times reported. The move sent high-flying stocks and bonds in Portugal plummeting, forced two Spanish companies to suspend bond offerings and brought concerns over the health of Europe’s banking system. As markets from Germany to Greece wobbled, the tumult was a reminder to investors as to how quickly bad news can spread in the euro zone.

Spanish wireless networks provider Gowex, at the heart of an accounting scandal that has hit Spain's reputation among investors, started insolvency proceedings on Thursday, giving it four months to reach a deal with creditors or face bankruptcy. Spain's High Court also said it had charged the company's founder and former chief executive Jenaro Garcia Martin with three financial crimes: false accounting, distortion of economic and financial information, and insider trading. He was called to testify next Monday, when he is also due to hand over his computer and his phone.