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Slovakia may cut electricity exports to Germany and other European Union states unless the bloc’s governments meet its demand to modify an emergency energy proposal, the country’s premier said, Bloomberg News reported. EU member states are set to clinch a deal on the unprecedented package to intervene in the energy market at a ministerial meeting on Friday in Brussels. It includes a cap on lower-cost power producers’ revenue from electricity that Slovakia argues isn’t fit for its national power industry.

The Bank of Canada will begin publishing a minutes-like summary of deliberations by officials after each policy decision in an effort to enhance transparency as it faces one of the most severe tests of its credibility, Bloomberg News reported. The move comes in response to a review by the International Monetary Fund, released on Wednesday, of the central bank’s transparency practices. The Bank of Canada said it will produce summaries roughly two weeks after each policy meeting, starting with the Jan. 25 decision.

Venezuelan business owners struggling to get access to credit amid their country's continued economic crisis are seeking loans through foreign banks, business people and finance industry sources told Reuters. Local banks in the South American country offer few loans to the private sector because of efforts by Nicolas Maduro's government to lower inflation by increasing the supply of foreign cash, limiting the expansion of credit, reducing public spending and raising taxes.

Outstanding loans in Brazil kept growing in August, according to central bank data on Wednesday, with credit showing robustness despite rising costs amid an aggressive monetary tightening, Reuters reported. Outstanding loans were up 1.6% in August from the month before to 5.067 trillion reais ($940.48 billion). In July, outstanding loans rose 0.6%, a figure that had not yet been released by the central bank, which is still normalizing its data after a strike by its employees earlier this year.

Taiwan's central bank said on Wednesday it will not adopt foreign exchange control measures and that foreign exchange management measures are enough to maintain financial market stability, Reuters reported. The Taiwan dollar has, like other major Asian currencies, depreciated sharply in recent weeks due to aggressive interest rate hikes in the United States and U.S. dollar strength as well as worries over slowing global economic growth.

The Bam Bam Beach Bitcoin bar, on an uncrowded beach in southwestern Portugal, is a bar and community of about 150 crypto supporters around the town of Lagos that are a bubble of optimism amid what has become known as the “crypto winter,” the New York Times reported. This summer, cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ether melted down, and crypto companies like the experimental bank Celsius Network declared bankruptcy as fears over the global economy yanked down values of the risky assets. Thousands of investors were hurt by the crash.

China has spent a trillion dollars to expand its influence across Asia, Africa and Latin America through its Belt and Road infrastructure program. Now, Beijing is working on an overhaul of the troubled initiative, according to people involved in policy-making, the Wall Street Journal reported. A slowing global economy, combined with rising interest rates and higher inflation, have left countries struggling to repay their debts to China. Tens of billions of dollars of loans have gone sour, and numerous development projects have stalled.

The draft Indian telecom bill has cleared the air on spectrum ownership for companies undergoing insolvency proceedings and around regulating OTT communication services, analysts said, the Economic Times of India reported. They added that the draft telecom bill also offers a robust regulatory framework within the federal structure to obtain right of way (RoW) approvals in a uniform, non-discriminatory manner, for establishing telecoms infrastructure and expediting the rollout of 5G networks.

Turmoil in British financial markets forced mortgage lenders to temporarily withdraw and reprice products for new customers on Monday, a real-world consequence of the market volatility thrown up by finance minister Kwasi Kwarteng's mini-budget last week, Reuters reported. Brokers said that the moves were likely just the start of a big shift in Britain's mortgage market. The country's largest mortgage lender Halifax said it was withdrawing its fee-paying mortgage products - where borrowers could pay an arrangement fee in exchange for a lower interest rate - and moving to a full fee-free range.

The European Central Bank will remain “extremely vigilant” of expectations for consumer prices to ensure they don’t surpass its medium-term goal, Governing Council member Pablo Hernandez de Cos said, Bloomberg News reported. “We’ll also have to watch out for a possible de-anchoring of medium- and long-term inflation expectations above 2%,” de Cos said Monday.