Headlines

After cross-border banks created huge headaches for European governments during the financial crisis, officials are pushing a new solution to the problem: Create more cross-border banks, The Wall Street Journal Brussels Beat blog reported in an analysis. Proponents of the plan want governments to give up long-standing resistance to having their banks taken over by foreign lenders as one possible remedy following new stress tests.

Up to five investors are understood to be willing to bid at least €950 million to buy the loans given to the property group controlled by Michael O’Flynn from Nama, although the State agency has yet to put them on the market, the Irish Times reported. Mr O’Flynn, the main shareholder behind Cork-based O’Flynn Construction and Tiger Developments, was one of the “top 10” developers whose loans were the first taken over by Nama when it began buying property-backed debt from the Republic’s banks in 2010.

New Zealand's banks have already started tightening up their lending criteria for customers seeking low-deposit mortgages, despite new regulations not kicking in until next month, The New Zealand Herald reported. The Reserve Bank's new rules, announced last month amid fears of a housing market meltdown, restrict banks in how much of their money they can lend to home buyers with less than 20 per cent deposit.

Belgian financial group Dexia has entered into exclusive talks with New York Life Investments to sell its asset management unit, it said late on Thursday. The group, which has to sell Dexia Asset Management as part of a deal with European regulators in exchange for state aid it received in recent years, did not say how much New York Life Investments planned to offer. Dexia had initially agreed to sell the asset management arm to Hong Kong-based GCS Capital for 380 million euros ($507 million), but that deal fell through in July.

As Europe moves closer to establishing a banking union in 2014, Saxo Bank CEO Lars Christensen tells RT it will destroy rather than strengthen the economy, warning the effects could be similar to the ones from the failed euro currency experiment. The Frankfurt-based European Central Bank will officially take over supervision of more than 6,000 eurozone banks as early as October 2014, after European lawmakers voted on uniting their banking regulators. Not all bankers are convinced creating more solidarity and liability between banks is the right prescription for Europe’s banks.

Arcapita, a private equity and investment company based in Bahrain, has emerged from bankruptcy protection in the U.S. this week, concluding a reorganization that analysts say may represent the first true post-financial-crisis debt restructuring by an Arab Gulf company, The Wall Street Journal Middle East Real Time blog reported. The bankruptcy plan approved by a U.S. court envisions Arcapita selling down its portfolio of assets over five years to repay creditors, and then effectively going out of business.

More than a year before a key European banking-rescue program is set to end, banks are starting to lobby for a plan to replace the old one, a sign of how rickety the continent's financial system remains, The Wall Street Journal reported. Starting in late 2011, the European Central Bank doled out roughly €1 trillion ($1.34 trillion) of emergency three-year loans to hundreds of European banks. The program, known as the long-term refinancing operation, or LTRO, was designed to save ailing banks that were struggling to borrow money through ordinary channels.

An international study of retirees shows Australians have been the hardest hit by the global financial crisis. The report by HSBC shows the crisis has caused the biggest drop in incomes for Australians entering retirement among the 15 countries surveyed. The reason is the big exposure that superannuation funds have to shares, The Sydney Morning Herald reported.

Tiimari Oyj, a Finnish retailer that sells stationery and craft materials, filed for bankruptcy protection after failing to find funding, Bloomberg Businessweek reported. Tiimari wasn’t able to secure enough financing to stay in business, the Vantaa, Finland-based company said in a statement to the Helsinki stock exchange today. The shares were halted at 0.07 euros at 4:17 p.m. yesterday in the Finnish capital pending an announcement from the company.

Average new-home prices in 70 Chinese cities rose faster in August than at any time since January 2011 despite government measures to keep property prices in check, spurred by strong home-buying in major cities, The Wall Street Journal reported. It was the seventh straight month of price increases compared with year-earlier levels, data released Wednesday by the National Bureau of Statistics showed. Month-on-month price gains also picked up, after moderating for the previous four months, signaling limited impact of the government's tightening measures.