Headlines

More time for debt reduction in new EU fiscal rules would have some advantages but common debt cutting benchmarks are still needed, a draft opinion piece by the German finance minister said, Reuters reported. Fiscal rules underpin the value of the euro by preventing excessive government borrowing, but a surge in public debt caused by the pandemic and the war in Ukraine has rendered them obsolete and reform is now being discussed.

With U.K. economic data this week suggesting that the Bank of England has a lot more to do to get inflation under control, the yield spread of sterling investment-grade bonds over their dollar peers has been widening fast, Bloomberg News reported. A 21 basis point jump this week took the spread to the widest since October, when the UK market was recovering from the turmoil caused by then-Prime Minister Liz Truss’s ill-fated budget. The indexes have a one-day lag.

Canada's financial regulator is urging lenders to tackle risks from mortgage extensions at the "earliest opportunity" as many borrowers try to navigate higher mortgage costs after the Bank of Canada's surprise rate hike last week, Reuters reported. The Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions' (OSFI) urgency underscores the concern about the risk accumulating in Canadian lenders' books as the central bank has resumed interest rate hike after a four-month pause.

The Swedish economy is facing headwinds from rising interest rates, high inflation and a slump in private consumption and is seen contracting this year, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said on Wednesday, Reuters reported. After faring relatively well through the pandemic, soaring consumer price rises and interest rates have begun taking a toll. Swedish households are among the most heavily indebted in Europe while many have floating-rate mortgages, meaning central bank rate hikes quickly result in higher costs.

Binance's Cyprus unit has applied to be removed from Cyprus' register of crypto asset service providers, the securities regulator website showed on Wednesday, in a move Binance said would allow it to focus on its larger European businesses, Reuters reported. It was unclear when Binance applied to deregister. The exchange, the world's biggest, announced its registration with the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission in October 2022. A source at the regulator said on Wednesday that Binance never launched its business in Cyprus.

Retail sales in Brazil rose for the second consecutive month in April driven by Easter sales, data from government statistics agency IBGE showed on Wednesday, but that was still not enough for them to meet market expectations, Reuters reported. Sales increased 0.1% in the month compared with March, IBGE said in a report, boosted by supermarket shopping but slightly below consensus of 0.3% from economists polled by Reuters, as growth lost steam from the previous month.

A major Kazakh financial lobby group thwarted an effort to set a much lower cap on unsecured loans popular with the vast majority of the workforce, all but undoing one of the signature initiatives in the country after last year’s deadly riots, Bloomberg News reported. Shaken by the unrest that’s been blamed on corruption and inequality, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev tried to claw back popularity with such measures as legislation on individual bankruptcy filings.

The European Union took an important step on Wednesday toward passing what would be one of the first major laws to regulate artificial intelligence, a potential model for policymakers around the world as they grapple with how to put guardrails on the rapidly developing technology, the New York Times reported. The European Parliament, a main legislative branch of the European Union, passed a draft law known as the A.I. Act, which would put new restrictions on what are seen as the technology’s riskiest uses.

Brazilian airline Azul on Tuesday launched exchange offers aimed at pushing forward bonds originally set to mature in 2024 and 2026, the latest move in a broader restructuring plan it expects to remove an overhang on its stock, Reuters reported. The exchange offers total $1 billion and follow a deal with aircraft lessors to give them equity and tradeable debt in exchange for lower payments, a deal seen reducing lease payments by a total 5.4 billion reais ($1.11 billion) in the long term.

Sam Bankman-Fried, the indicted founder of bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX, wants a U.S. judge to throw out criminal charges brought against him following his extradition from the Bahamas, Reuters reported. In papers filed late Monday in Manhattan federal court, lawyers for the former billionaire said they asked Bahamas' Supreme Court to bar the country's government from authorizing U.S. prosecutors to move forward on the five charges, until their client has a chance to be heard. The lawyers said that a sixth charge, for violating U.S.