Headlines

The number of bankruptcies awarded in Scotland has fallen by 20% as more people opt to repay their debts through a payback scheme, STV News reported. Figures released on Monday by Accountant in Bankruptcy (AIB), Scotland's insolvency service, revealed a 40% increase in debtors applying for debt payment programmes (DPP) under the Debt Arrangement Scheme (DAS). DAS, which is run by the Scottish Government, helps people resolve multiple debts by freezing interest and fees on the money owed and extending the time within which it must be paid back.

In France, clear signs of recovery are confounded by other indications that the country is still struggling to get back on a sustainable growth path, the Financial Times reported. This week, as the government prepared to unveil its full 2014 budget on Wednesday, the September Markit purchasing managers’ index for manufacturing and services showed a move back into growth for the first time in 18 months. The OECD club of rich countries recently forecast that the economy as a whole would grow by 0.3 per cent this year – against its previous projection of a 0.3 per cent contraction.

Ukraine's government bonds tumbled to fresh lows Tuesday, narrowing the cash-poor country's options for financing its debt and its spending, and pushing it closer to a bailout from the International Monetary Fund, The Wall Street Journal reported. The ex-Soviet republic has a litany of problems: a wide budget deficit, a wider trade deficit, dwindling reserves of foreign currency and debt coming due that needs to be repaid with it.

The National Asset Management Agency is planning to sell two loan portfolios in the coming weeks for an estimated €350 million to €400 milliion. This will add to the €2.2 billion in loan and asset sales already achieved by the agency this year, the Irish Times reported. Addressing a meeting of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants in Limerick yesterday, Nama chairman Frank Daly said they portfolio comprised of “prime retail and residential as well as offices”. Nama refused to comment further on the specifics of the loans, citing commercial sensitivities.

Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA, the bailed-out bank embroiled in a fraud probe, delayed approval of a restructuring needed to win regulator support for state aid as the authorities complete their review of the plan, Bloomberg reported. Monte Paschi’s board met yesterday and decided to postpone the approval, the bank said in a stock-exchange statement. The plan may include more asset sales, branch closings and savings than originally sought to comply with the tougher European antitrust regulator’s requirements for a 4.1 billion-euro ($5.5 billion) bailout received this year.

Bank lending to U.K. businesses fell again in August, an indication that a long-standing drag on growth has yet to be eliminated, The Wall Street Journal reported. Lending to businesses has been weak in the years following the 2008 financial crisis, a hindrance to business investment that economists believe has contributed to a significant decline in the productivity of the country's workers.

Sweden's Volvo Group, the world's second biggest lorry manufacturer, announced Tuesday a 5 billion kronor (580 million euros, $780 million) restructuring plan over two years, the Economic Times reported. "The programme encompasses both reduction of white collar employees and consultants and efficiency enhancements in the global industrial system," the company wrote in a statement, without indicating the number of jobs affected. The Volvo Group, which also makes buses, construction equipment and engines, indicated that the restructuring would mainly concern its lorry business.

While Greece's lenders are on firmer footing after getting capital from euro-area and International Monetary Fund bailout funds, they still need to reduce the non-performing loans that have tripled to 29 percent of the total in three years and threaten their new-found solvency, Bloomberg reported. One obstacle is a five-year ban on foreclosures that prevented thousands of Greeks from losing their homes after the economy went into free-fall. The government is now considering a plan to ease the restrictions by the end of this year to satisfy its creditors’ demands.

Spain emerged from two years of recession late this summer, but it faces a long period of more austerity and painful adjustments before it can regain its footing and put most of its six million unemployed back to work, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said on Monday, The Wall Street Journal reported. "Spain is out of recession but not out of the crisis," Mr. Rajoy said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, cautiously touting the effects of budgetary and structural overhauls that have been among the deepest in the euro zone.

The European Central Bank is ready to inject more liquidity into banks “if needed,” Mario Draghi, its president, said on Monday, despite further signs that the eurozone is sustaining its weak recovery, the Financial Times reported. Speaking in Brussels, Mr Draghi said the bank stood ready to conduct another round of liquidity-providing operations for banks in the form of a long-term refinancing operation or LTRO, which it used in 2011 and 2012 to inject €1tn in cheap three-year loans into the banking system.