Headlines

Portugal faces a delay in receiving bailout funds and the possible postponement of a long-awaited decision on easing repayments after the constitutional court rejected important government austerity measures, the Financial Times reported. The court ruling means Lisbon will not receive the next €2bn instalment of its €78bn bailout until it has convinced international lenders that fresh cuts in spending on health, education and social security will be sufficient to compensate for the rejected measures.

Slovenia's creditworthiness is deteriorating at the fastest pace in the world after Cyprus as investors speculate a banking crisis will force it to follow the island nation and become the sixth euro country to need aid, the Irish Times reported. Credit-default swaps insuring Slovenian debt for five years soared as much as 66 percent to a six-month high of 414 basis points on March 28th from 250 on March 15th, the last trading day before Cyprus announced plans for its rescue.

A record number of Spanish companies went bust in the first quarter of 2013 as companies remained under intense pressure from tight credit conditions and meagre demand, a study showed on Monday, Reuters reported. The 2,564 firms filing for insolvency proceedings in first three months of the year was a 10 percent rise from the previous quarter and a 45 percent increase on the same period in 2012, the survey by credit rating agency Axesor said.

Multilateral lenders have finalised a rescue package of almost $2bn for Jamaica, one of the most indebted countries in the world, as the Caribbean heavyweight attempts to return to fiscal and economic health, the Financial Times reported. The International Monetary Fund said on Monday that it would lend Jamaica $958m, some $200m more than expected, while the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank said they will each lend $510m.

In one of its last moves before being disbanded last week, Britain's Financial Services Authority did something few bank regulators have done since the financial crisis: They relaxed rules on some financial-services firms, The Wall Street Journal reported. The thrust of the new policy by the FSA and the Bank of England is to lower barriers to entry for new banks by reducing capital requirements and speeding up the approval process.

Serbian state-owned bank Postanska Stedionica took over the assets and liabilities of collapsed lender Razvojna Banka Vojvodine (RVB) on Monday, Postanska said. RVB is the second Serbian bank to collapse since the Socialist-nationalist government took over in 2012, after issuing loans without insuring itself against default. Police detained three former RVB officials in March on suspicion of extending loans without adequate insurance.

The sudden tumble of Cyprus from sun-kissed prosperity into bleak penury must certainly have felt precipitate to many of its citizens – more like a scalping than a haircut, the Financial Times reported. But the collapse is not really the result of a random lurch or shift in axis. It is the end of a path traced in a long, complacent arc of ease and sleaze that hit a wall. It is almost 40 years since the east Mediterranean island was traumatised by partition.

The eurozone is facing a new crisis and another government could fall after Portugal's highest court rejected four out of nine austerity measures ordered by international lenders, including the European Union, as a condition for the country's 78 billion ($96bn) bailout, The Australian reported. The court's decision to throw out government cuts to state pensions and public-sector wages came less than two weeks after Cyprus, a eurozone member, came close to leaving the currency.

National Bank's plan to absorb Eurobank to form Greece's biggest banking group will be suspended until both are recapitalised, and a state bank support fund will decide if the they should merge, a Finance Ministry official said on Sunday, Reuters reported. National acquired 84.3 percent of Eurobank via a share swap in February with a view to absorbing it as part of broader consolidation in the banking industry to cope with fallout from Greece's debt crisis and deep recession.

Bank of Ireland approved €1 billion of new loans to small and medium-sized enterprises in the first quarter of 2013, an increase of 25 per cent in the number of loans approved in the first three months of 2012, the Irish Times reported. The bank yesterday said the increase reflected a pick-up in credit demand from viable Irish SMEs and the bank’s initiatives to grow business-banking operations.