Money

Students who have had difficulty in paying the increased tuition fees at private universities now have been surprised by the new exorbitant increases announced for next academic year.

The increases in tuition fees of private universities exceeding 200 percent have been drawing the reaction of students since the beginning of the 2022-2023 academic year.

Since July 2022, lending rates in Cyprus have risen by 3.5%, putting borrowers in a tough position with dangerously increasing loan repayments. Banks are now searching for ways to alleviate the situation, and they may have found a way to offer some "breathing space" to borrowers with mortgages.

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 Public Debt Management Agency (PDMA) is auctioning 13-week treasury bills to the amount of 625 million euros in book entry form on Wednesday, with maturity on August 4.

The settlement date is this Friday.

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.

American citizens are increasingly turning to Greece to secure a Golden Visa, thereby turning this country into the third most popular in terms of applications for residence permits by US property investors, according to research by Astons.

France will go ahead with structural reforms to overhaul its economy after credit ratings agency Fitch downgraded the country's debt worthiness, Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire has told AFP.    

Fitch downgraded France's debt worthiness a notch to "AA-" from "AA" on April 28, claiming the country's "fiscal metrics are weaker than peers".    

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) on April 28 urged European central banks to "kill the beast" of inflation by pursuing interest rate hikes.

"You need to go and kill that beast" the IMF's European department director Alfred Kammer told reporters in Stockholm.

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.

Greece has not yet obtained investment grade because, obviously, the elections are coming up, the director of the economic office of the prime minister, Alex Patelis, said at the Delphi Economic Forum this week.