Headlines

Iran's banks may have escaped the global financial crisis because of their international isolation, but they are suffering from a different kind of credit crunch, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The country's 17 state and private banks are struggling with credit shortages that have brought them close to insolvency. The largest banks--Melli, Saderat and Sepath--have been hit with UN and US sanctions over the past two years, over alleged links with Iran's nuclear and missile programmes.

Smaller company insolvencies are set to rise by a "catastrophic" rate of 41 per cent by the end of next year compared with where they were at the end of 2007, according to a survey by R3, a trade body for insolvency practitioners. The findings, part of a poll of 2,073 of R3's members last month, suggest that the number of insolvencies are likely to approach peak levels last seen during the 1992 recession, the Financial Times reported yesterday.