The Greek state rescue fund for troubled banks HFSF announced it had taken part in local Alpha Bank's 800 million euro share offering only partially and thus decreased its stake to 9% from previous 11%. The fund still remained the biggest stockholder in the financial institution, Reuters elaborated.

All 23 of the nation’s biggest banks are healthy enough to withstand a sudden economic catastrophe, the Federal Reserve said Thursday as it released the results from its latest “stress tests,” giving the banks the green light to resume paying out dividends to investors and buying back stock, AP reports.

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen urged Congress to lift further or disable the limit for federal debts, Reuters reported. She reckoned that there were potential catastrophic economic consequences ahead. Yellen warned that a delay in such actions could easily push the country to debt default. The deadline for legal amendments is earmarked by Yellen as soon as August.

The Spanish BBVA announced it was starting trading with bitcoins as part of services offered to private banking clients in Switzerland, Reuters reported. The move follows several calls from customers interested in digital asset investment. The bank said the new business would include bitcoin trading and custody services, with the prospect of extending it to other cryptocurrencies. It would not offer advice on these types of investments, the statement said.

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is focusing efforts to gather support to back the minimum corporate tax deal after the agreement was approved at last week's G7 summit in Britain, Reuters reported. In her latest move Yellen debated on the tax deal with the Finance Minister of Mexico Arturo Herrera.

The Swiss national bank (SNB) announced it would keep ultra low interest rates although pick-up of post-pandemic demand increases the inflation pressure, Reuters reported. The monetary policy of the bank is in line with the approach of the Swiss government to ease the impact of the slowdown of economy, caused by the Covid-19 lockdown.

Deutsche Bank announced it expected massive losses after a court ruling, Reuters reported. The case was filed from customers challenging the volume of bank's fees. The information related to expected losses was confirmed by the CFO James von Moltke. In an online conference he stated that Deutsche Bank expects to take as much as a 300 million euro damage from the recent court rulling that favored consumers over banking fees.

The finance ministers o the world wealthiest countries are set to agree on taxation of technological conglomerates and at the same time mull a global minimum corporate tax at a two-day meeting in London, BBC reported. UK financial minister Rishi Sunak expressed optimism over the on-going talks related to the global digital taxation. The positive outlook comes after US earmarked puntitive tariffs on EU goods but soon later suspended them to allow the talks to continue.

Central bank of China announced it had imposed new measures to tighten control over the yuan, AP reported. The main concerns of the central Chinese bankers were link to the increased currency rate in combination with the lack of flexibility of the yuan. The commercial lenders operating in China were ordered to hold more of their foreign currency as reserves in the central bank to limit sales after the yuan hit a four-year high of 6.3674 to the US dollar.

The series of scandals involving Credit Suisse bank and the siphoning of billions of euros from clients assets have prompted unthinkable by now amendments to the Swiss banking regulations, Reuters reported. By now the Swiss bankers were practically untouchable and their status was guaranteed by law.