Headlines

Global regulators have watered down controversial new rules aimed at reining in banks’ reliance on debt, following ferocious industry lobbying, the Financial Times reported. Central bankers and supervisors on Sunday approved an international standard for the leverage ratio – a measure of financial strength that is considered less susceptible to being gamed by bankers – that offers some concessions to banks. The changes announced in Basel, Switzerland, will come as a relief to big investment banks who had been fretting they would be forced to raise billions in extra capital.

The Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) has extended the deadline for its housing loan restructuring program by another six months or until June this year, The Philippine Star reported. In a statement, the state pension fund said member-borrowers with current accounts have until June 30 to avail of the program. Under the program, the GSIS will condone all unpaid penalties and surcharges and grant extended payment terms to qualified applicants.

Roman Catholic Church-owned bookseller Weltbild, which competes with online retailer Amazon.com in Germany, filed for insolvency on Friday after its sales shrank and it unexpectedly found itself unable to obtain fresh financing, Reuters reported. Unlisted Weltbild, which has 6,800 employees, has been posting losses as it invests in a shift to more internet-based business. The company, which relies on catalogue sales and is part owner of Germany's second biggest brick-and-mortar bookstore chain, has struggled to keep up with Amazon and its sales fell in the second half of 2013.

Thousands of consumers who sent their old mobile phones to recyling site Cash4phones.co.uk have been left out of pocket after the company filed for insolvency, The Guardian reported. The website offered cash to consumers who wanted to get rid of an old phone after an upgrade, but payments were only made once handsets were received and users complained they were ultimately offered far less than originally quoted online. In some cases they reported the company failed to pay up at all.

Brazil's oil regulator ANP extended until January 24 a deadline for businessman Eike Batista's bankrupt Oleo e Gas Participações S.A. to show that it has the financial viability required to hold on to off-shore concessions, the company said on Friday, Reuters reported. The company, formerly known as OGX Petroleo e Gas Participações S.A., filed Latin America's largest-ever bankruptcy protection petition on Oct. 30. It had requested more time to fend off creditors and shore up its finances through its operating contracts and concessions.

Óleo e Gás Participações SA, Brazilian entrepreneur Eike Batista's oil company, said on Thursday it paid off part of the debt related to the development costs for two offshore oil fields, Reuters reported. The company, formerly known as OGX, paid the first installment of a past-due debt worth 73 million reais ($30.5 million) related to the fields of Atlanta and Oliva in Brazil's Santos basin, a company spokeswoman said. Óleo e Gás filed for Latin America's largest-ever bankruptcy protection petition on Oct. 30.

China's government is gearing up for a spike in nonperforming loans, endorsing a range of options to clean up the banks and experimenting with ways for lenders to squeeze value from debts gone bad, The Wall Street Journal reported. Write-offs have multiplied in recent months. Over-the-counter asset exchanges have sprung up as a way for banks to find buyers for collateral seized from defaulting borrowers and for bad loans they want to spin off.

A plan that would have changed the business models of Europe's dominant banks appears to have run into the sand. In Europe's first response to the U.S. Volcker rule, which puts strict limits on banks' trading activities, the European Commission rejected an automatic mandatory separation of banks' market-related activities from deposit-taking, according to draft legislation seen by The Wall Street Journal. That will disappoint those who had hoped the European Union would do more to ensure that banks' state-guaranteed deposits aren't used to support riskier market-related business.

The troubled More Than insurer RSA signalled another burst of pain ahead on the dividend yesterday as it prepares to strengthen its finances following "completely unacceptable" losses in Ireland, The Independent reported. A review of its Irish business by the accountancy firms PwC and KPMG found that "inappropriate collaboration" between the subsidiary's top executives undermined accounting controls, but said the problems were confined to Ireland. The problems were uncovered in November, forcing RSA to pump £200m into the business.

Greece’s finance minister says his government’s shrinking parliamentary majority has made it increasingly difficult to pass tough economic reform measures and called on the “troika” of international bailout lenders to be more realistic in its demands of Athens. Yannis Stournaras, who has been waging a four-month battle with bailout monitors over whether Greece is living up to the terms of its €172bn international rescue, said while Athens can continue to implement existing reforms – including better tax collection – ambitions for major legislative measures may need to be scaled back.