Headlines

Asian markets risk a reprise of financial crisis-level stress as two of the region’s most important currencies crumble under the onslaught of relentless dollar strength, Bloomberg News reported. The yen and yuan are both tumbling due to the growing disparity between an uber-hawkish Federal Reserve and dovish policy makers in Japan and China. While other Asian nations are digging deep into foreign-exchange reserves to mitigate the dollar’s damage, the yen and yuan’s slump is making things worse for everyone, threatening the region’s mantle as a preferred destination for risk investors.

Chile estimates it will issue $12 billion in total debt next year and the largest budget increases will be in social protection and science and technology, Finance Minister Mario Marcel told Reuters on Thursday. "So we're cutting (issuance) by half, reflecting the fact that we will have an overall balance that will be considerably stronger than what people thought we would have," said Marcel, adding most of it will be to refinance maturing issues. The minister is confident Chile will soon make a dent on inflation, running at double digits.

A U.K. businessman is under investigation after claiming more than £500,000 in Bounce Back loans for 12 firms that later went bust, the Mirror reported. Sukhwant Singh Pahal used the Government scheme – set up to help small businesses survive the pandemic – to claim up to £50,000 per company. One of his firms, Beans Housing Ltd, also received £1.1million from Birmingham City Council in 2017 to accommodate the homeless. All 12 of Mr Pahal’s firms applied for voluntary liquidation in 2021 on insolvency grounds.

Russia's banks have lost an estimated 1.5 trillion roubles ($25.5 billion) as a result of the fallout from the conflict in Ukraine, a central bank official said on Friday, Reuters reported. Maxim Lyubomudrov, who heads the regulator's department that supervises the country's largest banks, said this was an "acceptable" level of losses and that the government had plans in place to support Russia's lenders through the crisis. Read more.

Russian employees at airlines and airports have started to receive conscription notices after President Vladimir Putin ordered a partial military mobilisation, the Kommersant newspaper reported on Friday citing sources, Reuters reported. Employees of at least five airlines, including Russian top carrier Aeroflot, and staff at more than 10 airports received notices within a day of Putin ordering the mobilisation, the paper reported.

The International Monetary Fund confirmed on Sunday that a staff team will visit Ghana this week to continue discussions with the authorities on policies and reforms that could be supported by an IMF lending arrangement, Reuters reported. Ghana turned to the IMF for help in July as its balance-of-payments deteriorated and hundreds took to the streets to protest against economic hardship. An IMF staff team briefly visited the country two weeks later. Reuters' reported last week that an IMF team would visit Ghana this week.

The German government is in talks about providing urgent financial support for scores of regional state-owned energy providers which are struggling to cope with soaring gas prices, Reuters reported. The discussions centre on the critical network of hundreds of firms that supply energy and other vital services, such as water, to the country's homes and industry, underpinning Europe's biggest economy.

International bondholders are considering taking legal action in Mexico to recoup losses from troubled non-bank lender Credito Real, four sources have told Reuters, after bank creditors secured a settlement earlier this month, Reuters reported. Credito Real bonds have lost about 99% of their value since the company defaulted on a 170 million Swiss franc ($175.98 million) bond in February, kicking off a commercial liquidation process criticized by shareholders for lacking transparency.

Japan’s central bank took the unusual step Thursday of intervening in the market to stem the yen’s decline against the U.S. dollar, the Associated Press reported. Earlier in the day, the dollar rose to nearly 146 yen — a 24-year low — after the Bank of Japan left its key lending rate unchanged following the U.S. Federal Reserve’s decision to raise its benchmark rate by three-quarters of a percentage point. The dollar later fell sharply to about 142 yen. It was trading at 143.05 yen early Thursday morning U.S.

As Britain goes through a period of vast change, with a new government and new monarch, the central bank is steadily increasing interest rates to try to keep high inflation from becoming embedded in the nation’s economy, the New York Times reported. The Bank of England raised its key rate by another half a percentage point on Thursday, to 2.25 percent, taking it to the highest level since late 2008, but disappointing some who thought it would have made a three-quarter-point move.