What do German dentists and architects have in common with Yorkshire council workers? Bizarrely, they’re all part-owners of Airbus A380s. Airbus SE is struggling to sell the A380 and a second-hand market hasn’t become established yet. But Airbus isn’t the only one facing a problem: German retail investors and British pension funds have savings tied up in alternative investment vehicles …

For a central banker, nothing beats a (non) decision on interest rates as a way to bury some bad news. Amid the excitement of last week’s meeting of the European Central Bank (ECB), the regulator slipped out some unwelcome changes to its rule-book: banks will no longer be able to use some senior unsecured bonds as collateral when getting funding …

Ever since the financial crisis, the European Union has grappled with how to solve the so-called sovereign bank doom loop — the phenomenon whereby weak banks can destabilize governments that support them and over-indebted governments can push banks holding their bonds over the precipice. The widely touted solution is the European Banking Union, which the European Commission wants completed by …