Headlines

The executive board of the International Monetary Fund approved a loan worth $3 billion to help Sri Lanka through the financial crisis that has had the nation in a rolling economic and political crisis for more than a year, the New York Times reported. The I.M.F. had agreed in principle to extend the funds last September — subject to Sri Lanka’s meeting a series of conditions that included tightening its finances and renegotiating the terms of repaying debt it owes to the biggest economies in Asia.

The World Bank, International Monetary Fund and India, current head of the Group of 20 major economies, are working to reach agreement on key elements of a strengthened debt restructuring process before an April 12 meeting in Washington, World Bank President David Malpass said in a new blog, Reuters reported.

Canada's inflation rate slowed more than expected in February to its lowest level in 13 months, data showed on Tuesday, backing up the central bank's plans to hold off on further interest rates hikes, Reuters reported. The annual inflation rate fell to 5.2% in February from 5.9% in January, the biggest single-month decline in almost three years, Statistics Canada said. That beat a median analysts' forecast for a decline to 5.4%. Excluding food and energy, prices rose 4.8% versus a year ago compared with a 4.9% increase in January.

Nigeria’s central bank increased the key interest rate to the highest level since it was adopted in 2006 and plans to extend monetary tightening to contain inflation and bolster the differential that makes local assets attractive to foreign investors, Reuters reported. The monetary policy committee raised the benchmark rate for a sixth straight meeting to 18% from 17.5% on Tuesday. That was the smallest increase in its current tightening cycle.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's spokesperson on Tuesday urged lawmakers to back a major element of the new deal over post-Brexit trading arrangements in Northern Ireland, adding it was a good deal amid criticism from some Conservatives, Reuters reported. An influential group of eurosceptic Conservative lawmakers on Tuesday warned that the newly agreed 'Stormont brake" mechanism to prevent Northern Ireland being subject to unwelcome European Union laws was "practically useless".

Credit Suisse and UBS could benefit from more than 260 billion Swiss francs ($280 billion) in state and central bank support, a third of the country's gross domestic product, as part of their merger to buffer Switzerland against global financial turmoil, documents outlining the deal show, Reuters reported. Swiss authorities announced on Sunday that UBS had agreed to buy rival Swiss bank Credit Suisse in a shotgun merger aimed at avoiding more market-shaking turmoil in global banking.

The Bank of England sought to clarify its rules regarding the order in which shareholders and creditors should bear losses in the event of insolvency, in the wake of the controversial write-down of Credit Suisse Group AG’s riskiest bonds, Bloomberg News reported. The central bank said in a statement on Monday that additional tier 1 instruments, the securities rendered worthless as part of the UBS Group AG takeover, rank ahead of common equity tier 1 (CET1) and behind tier 2 (T2), a mix of reserves, hybrid instruments and junior debt.

The European banking system is well-equipped with capital and the probability of contagion due "very small", ECB's policymaker Yannis Stournaras said on Monday. "We don't see substantial vulnerabilities. So, the probability of contagion is very small today. The banks are well capitalised," Greek central bank chief Stournaras said. Stournaras added that Europe has all the instruments ready, if needed, to intervene.

Bankrupt crypto exchange FTX on Sunday sued the liquidators overseeing the wind-down of its Bahamian affiliate FTX Digital Markets, accusing them of wrongly claiming ownership of the exchange's assets, Reuters reported. FTX's U.S. based bankruptcy team, led by new CEO John Ray, said in its lawsuit that the liquidators were laying claim to FTX.com’s cryptocurrency, intellectual property, and customer relationships. FTX called FTX DM a "fraudulent enterprise", initially set up only to be a "local service company", which did not own the FTX.com exchange or any of the cryptocurrency seized.

Sri Lanka's foreign private creditors are considering proposing swapping the country's defaulted bonds for new securities where cash flow is linked to its economy's future growth, Retuers reported. Such bonds, known as state-contingent debt instruments, would be designed to automatically adjust variables such as coupon payments and maturities if the island nation's economy underperforms. The GDP-linked bonds would be based on International Monetary Fund's projections for Sri Lanka's economy. The latest IMF forecasts see it progressing from a 3% contraction in 2023 to a 3.1% growth in 2027.