Headlines

The property market is a "key vulnerability" for euro zone banks as the rise of remote working since the pandemic dents demand for offices and households take on more debt to buy expensive homes, the European Central Bank said on Wednesday, Reuters reported. Central bankers have been ringing alarm bells about the euro zone's booming property market that has a decade of ultra-low interest rates and light-touch prudential regulation have helped create.

Europe’s top court ruled on Wednesday that the European Union could withhold money for member countries that have curtailed the independence of their democratic institutions, marking a potentially costly defeat for Hungary and Poland, the Wall Street Journal reported. The ruling, by the EU’s European Court of Justice, gives the bloc more power to clamp down on governments accused of purging their judiciary or weakening anti-corruption watchdog agencies.

Last week, the most-awarded luxury cruise line in the industry, Crystal Cruises, unceremoniously shuttered its doors, with not a word to consumers nor travel agents. Abandoned by its parent company Genting Hong Kong Ltd., it leaves a trail of debt—to travelers, who’d put down payments and deposits for sailings into 2024; to agents owed commissions; to employees in offices; to crew still on ships; and to unpaid vendors, Bloomberg News reported.

Germany is set to ease COVID-19 restrictions as a wave of infections from the Omicron coronavirus variant seems to have passed its peak in most federal states, a draft plan seen by Reuters showed on Wednesday. In the three stage plan, restrictions on private indoor meetings will be dropped for those vaccinated or recovered from the virus, according to the draft, prepared for a meeting between Chancellor Olaf Scholz and the heads of the federal states on Wednesday.

Colombia’s economy blew away forecasts as it grew at the fastest pace in more than a century last year, driven by a rebound in consumer demand after pandemic curbs were eased, and soaring prices for the nation’s oil, coal and coffee, Bloomberg News reported. Gross domestic product expanded 10.6% in 2021, the nation’s statistics agency said Tuesday. That’s the fastest pace since at least 1906, according to data compiled by the central bank. GDP grew 10.8% in the fourth quarter from a year earlier, surprising all 15 economists surveyed by Bloomberg whose median forecast was for growth of 9.3%.

Two former Goldman Sachs colleagues will face off in a Brooklyn courtroom on Wednesday in a trial over the looting of hundreds of millions of dollars from Malaysia's 1MDB sovereign wealth fund, one of the biggest scandals in Wall Street history, Reuters reported. Roger Ng, Goldman's former head of investment banking in Malaysia, is charged with conspiring to launder money and to violate an anti-bribery law. Prosecutors said in opening statements at his trial on Monday in Brooklyn federal court that Ng received millions in kickbacks for helping embezzle funds from 1MDB.

Zambia’s central bank left its benchmark rate unchanged on expectations that inflation will continue slowing and to support a fragile economic recovery, Bloomberg News reported. The monetary policy committee held the rate at 9%, Governor Denny Kalyalya told reporters Wednesday in Lusaka, the capital. It was Kalyalya’s second rate decision since being reappointed to the post in September. The decision to hold was supported by a “sharp decline in inflation since December” and due to “some fragility” in economic growth, Kalyalya said.

The Kolkata bench of the National Company Law Tribunal has approved consolidated insolvency proceeding for Srei Group's two non-bank lenders, BloombergQuint reported. Srei Infrastructure Finance Ltd. and Srei Equipment Finance Ltd. will face a consolidated insolvency proceeding under the same committee of creditors, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter. The bidders will place a single bid under the insolvency proceeding to purchase a consolidated balance sheet, the first of the two people quoted above said.

China’s central bank stepped up support for its slowing economy by pumping in cash via policy loans for a second straight month. The benchmark stock index advanced, outperforming regional equities, Bloomberg News reported. The People’s Bank of China injected a net 100 billion yuan ($15.7 billion) into the banking system with its medium-term lending facility, while leaving the borrowing rate unchanged. The CSI 300 rose as much as 1.1%. Chinese banks in January extended a record amount of loans after the PBOC lowered borrowing costs for the first time since 2020 last month.

China’s “Covid-zero” policy has limited impact on the economy because measures are highly localized and targeted, according to Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd, Bloomberg News reported. Only around 2.6% of China’s economy in terms of gross domestic product is subject to so-called “dynamic clearing” policy measures currently, economists led by Raymond Yeung wrote in a report Tuesday. Assuming the impact lasts for a quarter, that effect is 0.6% of annual GDP, they estimate.