Headlines

Vince Cable, the Business Secretary, has signalled that the Royal Bank of Scotland will be in public hands for another five years, increasing the chances it will be broken up before it is re-privatised. In an interview with The Sunday Telegraph, Mr Cable revealed that he believed there was very little prospect of any sale taking place before the next election and that it is probable the state will retain its 81pc stake in RBS for the majority of the next Parliament as well.

Nationwide spot checks by Greek tax inspectors have found that almost every other business is cheating the taxman in some way, as the debt-hobbled country's authorities struggle to improve revenue collection amid a crippling recession, the Associated Press reported. Despite repeated campaigns by successive governments to clamp down on tax fraud, it remains a major problem in Greece, which for the past three years has relied on vast international rescue loans to stave off bankruptcy.

China’s broadest measure of new credit fell to a 21-month low as Premier Li Keqiang extended a campaign to curb a record expansion of lending that’s added dangers to the nation’s financial system. Aggregate financing was 808.8 billion yuan ($132 billion), the People’s Bank of China said in Beijing, compared with the 925 billion yuan median estimate of analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News. New yuan loans exceeded forecasts and accounted for about 87 percent of the total, the most since September 2011. M2 money supply growth unexpectedly accelerated to 14.5 percent.

Despite five consecutive months of falling unemployment, signs of financial strain remain evident among Northern Ireland households, according to new personal and corporate insolvency figures, The Belfast Telegraph reported. Northern Ireland corporate insolvencies were up 91% from May to June compared to January to March but were lower than the corresponding quarter in 2012. In the last quarter there were 105 company liquidations or corporate insolvencies here. Last year was a record year for corporate insolvencies in Northern Ireland with 410 in total.

Brazil has called for the IMF-backed rescue programmes for Greece and other southern eurozone countries to be reviewed to make them more economically sustainable. The call from finance minister Guido Mantega came as he sought to explain Brazil’s stance on Greece’s rescue programme after its IMF representative, Paulo Nogueira Batista, abstained from a vote to approve the latest tranche of help for Athens.

Greece’s unemployment rate rose to a record in May, amid the sixth year of an economic slump that has been deepened by austerity measures tied to bailouts from euro-area governments and the International Monetary Fund, Bloomberg reported. The seasonally adjusted jobless rate rose to 27.6 percent from a revised 27 percent in April, the Athens-based Hellenic Statistical Authority said in an e-mailed statement today. The median estimate of four economists in a Bloomberg survey was 26.9 percent. The April unemployment rate was revised from a previous reading of 26.9 percent.

Germany's Commerzbank saw its second-quarter profit slide as it continued to take losses on bad real estate and shipping loans - but the company's shares jumped after it said was making progress with its strategy of getting rid of costly non-core assets, the Associated Press reported. It said Thursday that it made a net profit of 43 million euros ($57 million) during the quarter, down 84 percent on the 270 million euros it made in the same period a year earlier.

State-backed Royal Bank of Scotland is unlikely to decide how it plans to sell more than 300 UK branches until the end of next month after extending a deadline for prospective bidders, industry sources said, Reuters reported. There are three potential bidders, who have this week been finalising leadership and how to structure what is proving to be a complex deal, sources said. RBS had set a "soft" deadline of the start of this week for bids to be made, but that was now likely to stretch into next week, industry sources said. The network could be valued at about 1.5 billion pounds.

KBC Bank Ireland recorded a €69 million loss after tax and charges for impaired loans for the three months to the end of June, the Irish Times reported. This was down from €96 million in same period last year. The Belgian lender said Irish loan impairments for the second quarter fell to €88 million from €99 million the previous quarter, and €136 million in the corresponding period last year. KBC said, however, it continues to see a “mild increase” in arrears.

The Canadian subsidiary of Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway, whose train ravaged Lac-Mégantic, got the creditor protection it was seeking, but the Quebec Superior Court judge who granted its request had some harsh words for the railway’s directors, The Globe and Mail reported. Justice Martin Castonguay granted the stay of proceedings against the railway company on Thursday to “avoid judicial anarchy.” However, the judge initially excluded the directors of Montreal Maine & Atlantic Canada from the court’s protection.