Headlines

France's power suppliers have agreed to offer small businesses struggling with price rises a guaranteed tariff of 280 euros ($298) on average per megawatt hour, Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said, Reuters reported. "This is a guaranteed tariff and it is an enormous relief," said Le Maire after a meeting on Friday with energy executives. President Emmanuel Macron had on Thursday urged energy suppliers including EDF and TotalEnergies to do more to help customers cope with the surge in energy prices that has in recent months driven inflation to record highs.

European Union lawmakers are poised to toughen up controls over foreign bank branches, which could be forced to become subsidiaries that tie up more capital, lawmaker compromises seen by Reuters showed. The bloc is updating its rules for banks, partly to implement the final leg of post-financial crisis bank capital rules known as Basel III. The move is being closely watched by banks based outside the EU that operate branches in the bloc.

Binance, the world's largest crypto exchange by trading volume, is making a new public effort to show it's taking compliance in the crypto market seriously, YahooFinance.com reported. On Friday, the company announced it will join the Association of Certified Sanctions Specialists (ACSS) to enhance the expertise of its international compliance team.

The United States and Japan on Friday launched a new task force to promote human rights and international labor standards in supply chains and said they would invite other governments to join the initiative, Reuters reported. U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai signed a memorandum on the initiative in Washington with Japan's Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Yasutoshi Nishimura.

Mexico's government said on Friday that it will issue a new decree for a temporary exemption on import tariffs for various items, a measure intended to tame inflation, Reuters reported. The new decree, set to be published in the official gazette on Friday, will extend a prior order to temporarily waive tariffs and include more items, according to a government statement.

Public sector banks-owned National Asset Reconstruction Company (NARCL) has emerged as the highest bidder for the twin SREI companies. According to sources, the bad bank has bid Rs 5,555 crore for the two companies — Srei Infrastructure Finance (SIFL) & Srei Equipment Finance (SEFL), the Economic Times of India reported. Authum Infrastructure is the second highest bidder with its offer of Rs 5,526 crore. The third bidder, comprising Varde Partners and Arena Investors, is understood to have stayed away.

China's central bank and the banking and insurance regulator have established a dynamic adjustment mechanism on mortgage rates for first-time home buyers, the central bank said on Thursday, in a bid to further support the property sector. For cities where the selling prices of new homes fall month-on-month and year-on-year for three consecutive months, the floor on mortgage rates can be lowered or abolished for first-time home buyers in phases, according to a statement by the People's Bank of China.

China’s services sector contracted for a fourth straight month in December, underscoring Covid-19’s economic costs just days before the country reopens its borders to revive growth, the Wall Street Journal reported. The Caixin services purchasing managers index, published on Thursday, rose to 48.0 in December, indicating the slowdown of activity in the sector had moderated from the previous month, when the gauge was at 46.7. A reading below 50 indicates contraction.

Britain will introduce legislation to ensure key public services maintain minimum safety levels during industrial action, as the government seeks to limit disruption from strikes now involving tens of thousands of workers, Reuters reported. The government said on Thursday it would bring the bill to parliament in the coming weeks and would consult on the minimum safety levels to be set for fire, ambulance and rail services. "While we hope that voluntary agreements can continue to be made in most cases, introducing minimum safety levels...

European bond traders face greater volatility in early 2023 as governments look set to sell record volumes of debt to a market no longer propped up by central bank purchases, Bloomberg News reported. Net government supply will climb to a record of nearly €500 billion ($530 billion) in 2023, according to Barclays Plc. “There will be a big test of market liquidity,” Tom Prickett, head of rates trading for Europe, Middle East and Africa at JPMorgan Chase & Co., said in an interview.