Headlines

Overriding opposition from lawmakers to filling the post with a man, European Union leaders have appointed Yves Mersch of Luxembourg to the executive board of the European Central Bank, the New York Times reported today. Mersch, who is currently the head of the Luxembourg central bank, will take the post on Dec. 15 for an eight-year term following a decision yesterday at a summit in Brussels, where leaders were seeking to hash out a long-term budget for the bloc.

Statistics Canada said today that Canada's annual inflation rate remained subdued in October although a touch higher than expectations, as higher prices at gas stations and for meat were offset by a decline in natural gas costs, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The all-items consumer price index in October, on a year-over-year basis, was up 1.2 percent, matching the previous month's rate but slightly above market expectations of 1.1 percent, according to economists at Royal Bank of Canada.

Call it Greece vs. the bondholders, Round 2. Almost nine months after forcing private sector investors to stomach a 75 percent loss on their Greek bonds, the Greek government — with the support of Germany, its largest creditor — is weighing a plan to repurchase some debt at today’s market price of 25 to 27 cents, according to bankers and lawyers involved in the talks, The New York Times DealBook blog reported. The bid would be considerably below the 35 cent level that many large hedge fund that own the bonds have set as a minimum for getting a deal done.

Britain and France are heading for a showdown in Brussels over the next EU budget, amid rising hopes in Downing Street that the debate is shifting in favour of the tough settlement demanded by David Cameron, UK prime minister, the Financial Times reported. Herman Van Rompuy, European Council president, has proposed a compromise budget that approaches Mr Cameron’s demands for a freeze on spending – indeed on one measure he is proposing a cut.

With its gleaming shopping malls and omnipresent luxury brands, Hong Kong is an easy place to turn spendthrift. And if a survey last month of 1,000 Hong Kong residents is any indicator, it’s a hard place to hold onto cash, the China RealTime blog reported. Fully two-thirds of primary income earners reported having less than a month’s income saved in the bank. Those numbers come as a surprise, given that Hong Kong is “quite a wealthy zone,” says Peter Barrett, global managing director of lifestyle protection for insurance company Genworth GNW +0.54%, which commissioned the survey.

After six months keeping the world guessing about whether he had a vision for fixing France's sickly economy, President Francois Hollande has unveiled a battle plan "à la française" to ease companies' labour costs and trim public spending. But the softly-softly pace of adjustment may be too slow to satisfy financial markets after Moody's on Monday became the second credit ratings agency to strip Paris of its AAA rating, citing both a loss of competitiveness and low growth, Reuters reported in an analysis.

Payday loans companies are failing to adequately check whether loans will be affordable for borrowers and have been warned by the regulator over "aggressive" debt collection practices, The Guardian reported. The Office of Fair Trading has written to all 240 payday lenders highlighting "emerging concerns" over poor practices in the market, and has opened formal investigations into several payday lenders over how they pursue borrowers who have defaulted on their repayments.

Liquidators have been appointed to a private company owned by struggling Australian mining magnate Nathan Tinkler over a A$28.4 million ($29.6 million) debt, exposing the coal baron to extensive scrutiny of his finances, Reuters reported. The New South Wales Supreme Court ordered on Tuesday that Mulsanne Resources Pty Ltd be wound up, suspending Tinkler's powers as a director of the company and giving liquidators access to its books to recover the money owed to junior coal company Blackwood Corp Ltd.

Britain's banks should be forced to fully separate their retail arms from investment banking operations if they try to circumvent new rules designed to protect the taxpayer, a top regulator warned, Reuters reported. Andrew Bailey, head of banking supervision at the Financial Services Authority (FSA), said banks should face the threat of being broken up if they fail properly to comply with proposals to ring-fence retail deposits from riskier activities. Bailey said there was a risk that banks would try to "tunnel under" any ring-fence that was set for them.

Spanish banks, awaiting the first payments from a €100 billion European credit line, saw bad loans hit a new high in September, new data showed Monday, the Irish Times reported. The new figures will not affect the euro zone aid, aimed at cleaning up the toxic real estate assets from the lenders' balance sheets, but reflect moves by the banks to be more realistic about the extent of their bad loans. A recent independent audit of Spanish banks concluded that they needed capital injections totalling €60 billion to ride out a severe economic crisis.