Brit and Irish banks escape €106bn recap

The EBA will use banks' figures at the end of September 2011 to calculate their capital and sovereign debt positions.

Europe Resolution Critical to Obama Re-Election

President Barack Obama’s path to re- election may pass through Berlin and Paris.

EU bailout fund chief says 'no deal' with China

he head of the European bailout fund dampened hopes on Friday that China would come to the rescue of the debt-stricken EU, but left the door open for a deal with the world's second-biggest economy.

Pay deals 'lag behind inflation'

UK  pay deals are failing to keep up with the cost of living, especially for public sector workers, according to new research.

Eurozone aims to ramp up rescue fund, details deferred

BRUSSELS/ROME: Euro zone leaders intend to multiply the capacity of their rescue fund around fourfold to one trillion euros but details of how they plan to draw a line under Europe's worsening debt crisis will not be nailed until next month, sources said.

Swiss banking secrecy has no place in globalised world'

Switzerland's bank secrecy laws and anonymous numbered accounts have a long and shameful history: They have been used to help criminals conceal illicit gains, to deny Holocaust survivors their stolen inheritances and to help the world's wealthy hide taxable income.

Central bankers must update outdated analytical toolkit

Gillian Tett has a nice post in today’s FT where she refers to two recent BIS Working Papers by Claudio Borio, that deals with the need for new tools and policies by central banks, post-crisis.

U.K. Stocks Rebound From Two Days of Losses; Lloyds, BSkyB Climb

Oct. 19 (Bloomberg) -- U.K. stocks advanced, rebounding from two days of losses, amid conflicting newspaper reports that Germany and France have agreed to further boost the euro area’s bailout fund, the European Financial Stability Facility.

Lloyds Banking Group Plc and Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc jumped more than 3.5 percent. British Sky Broadcasting Group Plc climbed after saying operating profit rose 16 percent.

Bailout: Revamping the fund

THE EUROPEAN Financial Stability Facility was created in panic in the course of a frantic weekend in May last year. Now it is set for a second overhaul in less than three months. This part of Europe’s “firewall” against the risk of contagion from Greece is designed to protect distressed sovereign states.

Financial stability equal to monetary policy, says Bernanke

Central banks should view financial stability as being just as important as monetary policy, the chairman of the US Federal Reserve suggested last night.

Speaking at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston’s economic conference, Ben Bernanke  said he expects monetary policy will continue to be standard approach used by central banks to promote macroeconomic stabilisation.

France Risks Losing Top Grade on Bailout Fund

Proposals to beef up Europe’s bailout fund by offering to guarantee portions of the debt owed by the region’s weaker governments threaten to trash France’s top credit rating.

The nation’s 10-year notes are the fourth-worst performers this quarter -- behind Greece, Belgium and Ireland -- as traders speculate the European Financial Stability Facility will be used to insure the first portion of losses in the event of a sovereign default. France’s rating is under pressure, Moody’s Investors Service said yesterday, and investors now demand a record 105 basis points more to hold its bonds rather than German notes, up from 29 basis points in April.

EU Van Rompuy: Guaranteeing Financial Stability Key To Growth

BRUSSELS (Dow Jones)--European leaders are working on a "comprehensive package" to restore confidence in euro-zone debt markets and in the region's banks, European Council President Herman Van Rompuy said Monday ahead of a key summit.

"For weeks the commission and I have already been working on a comprehensive package to create more confidence in the financial sector and in the sovereign bonds of countries under pressure," he said alongside President Jose Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, the executive branch.

Europe's Bailout Fund Overcomes a Hurdle

It appears that the world can take its eyes off Bratislava.

Slovakia's largest opposition party, after a bit of parliamentary gamesmanship, cleared the way Wednesday for the country to endorse changes to the €440 billion ($600 billion) euro-zone bailout fund that European political leaders have deemed essential to the bloc's efforts to beat back the sovereign-debt crisis.

Wall Street set to slip ahead of key vote in Europe

Tuesday is shaping up to be a busy day on Wall Street.

Stock index futures suggest the market will fall at the start of trading as investors wait for the results of a key vote by Slovakia on a plan to expand the euro zone rescue fund.

All the other member states have ratified a plan to increase the size and powers of the European Financial Stability Facility bailout fund. Now all that remains is for Slovakia to have its say on the matter.

Greece Activates Bank Rescue Fund to Create New Proton Bank

Oct. 10 (Bloomberg) -- Greece's central bank activated a rescue fund set up under an EU-led bailout in May 2010 to restructure Proton Bank SA, with the Hellenic Financial Stability Fund becoming its sole shareholder.

Athens-based Proton will reorganize into a new lender called New Proton Bank which will have a 10.6 percent capital adequacy ratio, according to an e-mailed statement from the Greek Finance Ministry today. A separate Bank of Greece statement said the capital adequacy was well above regulatory thresholds.

Slovak party gives qualified EFSF support

A small Slovak party has said it will support the expansion of the eurozone’s temporary bail-out fund, but only if Slovakia refuses to take part in a permanent rescue mechanism that is due to be established by the bloc next year.

The Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) party had previously pledged to oppose changes to the European financial stability facility, threatening to derail its ratification in the Slovakian parliament.

Japan may buy more Euro bailout bonds-Nikkei

TOKYO, Oct 5 (Reuters) - Japan plans to buy more bonds issued by Europe's bailout fund to help contain the euro-zone debt crisis, the Nikkei business daily reported, as financial markets remain jittery about growing prospects for a default by Greece.

Japan, which already holds 20 percent of the total bonds issued by the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF), will decide the purchase amounts and timeline based on issuance terms and market conditions, the daily said.

Beefed up euro zone fund unlikely to succeed

If as Albert Einstein observed insanity is “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results,” then the latest proposal for resolving the euro zone debt crisis requires psychiatric rather than financial assessment.

The sketchy plan entails Greece restructuring its debt with writedowns around 50 per cent and recapitalization of the affected banks. The European Financial Stability Funds (EFSF) would increase its size to a proposed €2-€3-trillion from its current €440-billion. This would enable the fund to inject capital into banks and also support Spain and Italy’s financing needs to reduce further contagion risks.