Headlines

The European Central Bank has instructed Greece’s biggest banks to refrain from increasing their exposure to Greek government debt, according to people familiar with the matter, The Wall Street Journal reported. The move raises pressure on the cash-strapped government in Athens to find an agreement with its international creditors to unlock billions of euros in bailout funds. The new restriction from the ECB’s bank supervisors, which was approved by the central bank’s governing council, was conveyed to the Greek banks in a letter on Tuesday.

Austria's application of new European Union rules in its handling of failed bank Hypo Alpe Adria was justified, the bloc's financial services chief Jonathan Hill said on Tuesday. Hypo Alpe Adria, now defunct, was nationalised in 2009 and has already cost Austrian taxpayers about 5.5 billion euros ($6 billion), with the bailout triggering new banking legislation and a complex web of litigation.

Europe's banks are likely to sell a record 100 billion euros (73 billion pounds) of loans this year that are no longer part of their main businesses, according to consultants PwC, chipping away at a pile of 1.9 trillion euros of unwanted assets, Reuters reported. European banks last year sold 91 billion euros of so-called 'non-core' loans, and that number is likely to rise by another 10 percent this year, PwC said in a report released on Tuesday.

Sunac China Holdings Ltd. Chairman Sun Hongbin defended Kaisa Group Holdings Ltd.’s debt-restructuring proposal, saying it’s “reasonable” and that his company may seek other opportunities if its planned acquisition fails. Sunac won’t let the purchase of the troubled Shenzhen-based developer affect its own operations, Sun said at a briefing in Hong Kong on Tuesday. Kaisa’s situation is worse than expected and the company “definitely” won’t be able to make coupon payments next month, Sun said.

The government's student loan scheme is open to exploitation, the Ombudsman said, highlighting 13,000 default cases recorded over the past three years involving at its peak HK$200 million in unpaid debts, the South China Morning Post reported. Over half of the unpaid debts came from the extended non-means-tested loan scheme, which offers loans at lower-than-market rates - mostly to the working population to enrol in part-time courses.

The deficit-ridden pension fund for Brazilian postal workers is being investigated for alleged reckless management after several years of money-losing bets ranging from investments in Lehman Brothers bonds to Argentine debt, two people with knowledge of the matter said, Bloomberg News reported.

It does not get much simpler than this: the Greek government is rapidly running out of money and the EU authorities who could provide the cash to bail them out are refusing to do so, the Financial Times reported. That is at the heart of the two-month stand-off between Athens and its eurozone creditors, and the main complaint contained in a five-page letter sent a week ago by Alexis Tsipras, the Greek prime minister, to his German counterpart, Chancellor Angela Merkel, who he was due to meet in Berlin on Monday evening.

Liquidators for ES Bankers (Dubai) Ltd (ESBD) have estimated they will pay out 82.7 percent of the $93.5 million owed to depositors in the stricken bank, advisory firm Deloitte said on its website, Reuters reported. However, unsecured creditors of the Dubai arm of the Espirito Santo empire, which stumbled after accounting irregularities were identified at one of its holding companies earlier last year, will get none of the $14 million they are owed, the document added.

The European Central Bank will purchase large amounts of public and private debt for at least 18 months and until it is convinced that inflation will stabilize near annual rates of 2%, the bank’s president Mario Draghi said on Monday, underscoring the ECB’s willingness to flood the eurozone with freshly minted money far into the future, The Wall Street Journal reported. In testimony to European parliament, Mr. Draghi also urged Greece to commit to fully honoring its debt obligations.

Bonds of 11 Chinese companies now yield more than 15 percent as investors brace for the nation’s second onshore default amid record maturities in the coming quarter, Bloomberg News reported. Companies in Asia’s largest economy need to repay 1.5 trillion yuan ($242 billion) of local-currency notes in the period to June 30, the most for a quarter in Bloomberg data going back to 1998.