Financial services

Banks are expecting a decrease in demand for business loans, especially from small and medium-sized enterprises, in the second quarter of the year, as a result of the rise in interest rates and the increase in the cost of money, which discourages borrowing.

The European Commission wants to make online transactions faster and safer by making immediate payments the main option to pay for online items or simply transferring money. The EU's proposed law aims to make quick payments a barrier to the dominance of international systems such as Visa and MasterCard, as well as the entry of large internet companies into the payments sector.

Regulators seized troubled First Republic Bank and sold all of its deposits and most of its assets to JPMorgan Chase Bank in a bid to head off further banking turmoil in the U.S.

The Bank of Japan announced a review of its longstanding monetary easing measures on April 28 but said it would maintain them for the time being in the first policy decision under new governor Kazuo Ueda.

The Turkish Central Bank on April 27 held its interest rate at 8.5 percent in its Monetary Policy Committee's (MPC)  meeting.

The Bulgarian National Bank (BNB) has taken measures to restrict lending and control the growth of inflation. The central bank's decision is to more than double the minimum required reserves of banks.

This is happening two days after the BNB reported as a risk the rapid growth of lending from commercial treasuries.

The process of raising interest rates in Bulgaria will accelerate in the coming months, the BNB predicts in the traditional publication "Banks in Bulgaria". The Central Bank warns that there are prerequisites for the accumulation of risk in the balance sheet of the banking system.

More than $68 billion was withdrawn from Credit Suisse in the first three months of 2023, the bank said Monday in what are likely its final quarterly results before it is swallowed by rival UBS.    

Switzerland's long-time second largest bank saw 61.2 billion Swiss francs ($68.6 billion) withdrawn in the first quarter alone.    

In the 2015 movie "The Big Short," a disenchanted Wall Street banker portrayed by Steve Carell discovers that the until then roaring US housing market rests on flimsy foundations, years of precarious loan-giving, creating a bubble. Our banker, utterly disappointed by the inner rot of the "system," duly proceeds to bet against it and, in doing so, wins a fortune.

The Single Social Security Entity is entering a new digitization phase, as seven reforms are already under way which, when completed, are expected to turn EFKA into a truly modern organization.