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Chinese regulators increased banks’ capacity to lend money and bolster the slowing economy by changing the way loan-to-deposit ratios are devised, Bloomberg News reported. Banks from today can include in the calculation negotiable certificates of deposit sold to companies or individuals, the China Banking Regulatory Commission said in a statement yesterday. They can also exclude loans advanced to small enterprises and the rural sector that are backed by bonds, the CBRC said. Bank lending is capped at no more than 75 percent of deposits to prevent an overextension of credit.

The European Commission said on Monday it had approved a Bulgarian request to extend a credit line of 3.3 billion levs, or about $2.25 billion, in support of banks that have come under speculative attack, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. “The Commission concluded that the state aid implied by the provision of the credit line is proportionate and commensurate with the need to ensure sufficient liquidity in the banking system in the particular circumstances,” the European Union’s executive branch said in a statement.

In the latest sign of the mounting risks to China’s debt market, a bank for the first time ever reportedly disclosed the default on a loan by a local government financing vehicle, Fox Business News reported. Over the weekend, the 21st Century Business Herald, a Chinese-language newspaper, reported Qilu Bank in Shandong Province told investors in its 2013 annual report that the Urban Construction and Comprehensive Development Company of Licheng District, Jinan City (located on China’s east coast) defaulted on a bank loan, according to Nomura.

In 2007, the German government led by Chancellor Angela Merkel voted to lift the retirement age gradually to 67 from 65, in line with policies being adopted by the United States and other countries concerned about the costs of supporting an aging population. Economists say that move not only stabilized Germany’s public pension system but also put Berlin in a position to insist during the subsequent financial crisis that other European governments follow suit, the International New York Times reported. But now, with the worst of the economic downturn apparently past, and Ms.

Australia’s insolvency laws, and the question of whether it is time to reconsider a chapter 11 style, have inadvertently been put back on the agenda by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia’s rogue financial planning scandal, Financial Review reported. It almost looked like an afterthought, but the last of 61 recommendations in last week’s Senate committee report into how the corporate regulator handled the CBA cases touches on an issue that has been the subject of some high-level discussions behind closed doors lately.

About 19.7 percent of the subsidiaries of Korean conglomerates are with impaired capital, or have a debt ratio of over 400 percent, BusinessKorea reported. According to management evaluation firm CEO Score, out of the 1,418 subsidiaries of the 47 business groups with an asset size of at least 5 trillion won (US$4.94 billion), a total of 279 companies were categorized into a group of marginal firms and subject to cross shareholding restrictions. Out of those, 110 had impaired capital and 169 of them had a debt ratio exceeding 400 percent.

Bulgaria’s political leaders held emergency talks on Sunday with Rosen Plevneliev, the president, following warnings by the government and the central bank of attempts by unidentified people to destabilise the financial system, the Financial Times reported. The second run on a Bulgarian-owned bank in a week took place on Friday, prompting fears that other local lenders might face problems when they open on Monday. Scores of protesters gathered outside the president’s office, shouting, “resign, resign” as the party leaders arrived for the talks.

Judgment has been reserved on the Central Bank’s move to stop a former director of Irish Nationwide Building Society pursuing it for an indemnity against any award of damages against him arising from alleged delegation of powers of the Board of the Society to its former chief executive Michael Fingleton, the Irish Times reported.

The German government won't take on new debt in 2015—the first time since 1969 it has avoided doing so, according to draft budget figures, as Berlin seeks to demonstrate the benefits of structural economic changes to its struggling euro-zone partners, The Wall Street Journal reported. Germany has become Europe's growth engine with solid finances over the past few years, after a social-welfare overhaul implemented 10 years ago helped the country to boost economic and job growth.

Bank of New York Mellon Corp. must return a $539 million deposit from Argentina intended for restructured bondholders, a U.S. judge ruled, calling the transfer an “explosive action” that disrupted potential settlement talks with holders of defaulted debt, Bloomberg News reported. U.S. District Judge Thomas Griesa in New York has ruled that Argentina can’t pay holders of its restructured debt without also paying more than $1.5 billion to a group of defaulted bondholders, raising the possibility of a new default as the South American nation approaches a June 30 payment deadline.