As it does each year, the European Commission is digging into the budgets of euro-zone member states to see if they comply with the bloc’s fiscal rules. The recent slowing of the European economy complicates this work — or ought to. It suggests that Brussels should not be overly strict. The commission needs to sanction serious violations, but it can ...

Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond barely uttered the B-word in the more than 70 minutes it took him to unveil the latest UK budget on Monday. Inevitably, though, Brexit was the elephant stomping around the room — or, rather, one of them. Exit negotiations with the European Union (EU) are stalled over a disagreement about how to keep ...

Watch out HSBC Holdings Plc. The digital banking revolution is coming for all the easy money the UK-based bank has long taken for granted. Hong Kong was HSBC’s birthplace as the Hongkong & Shanghai Banking Corp., and the former British colony remains its single biggest market, a source of sticky deposits and ready borrowers. For now, that’s still boosting the ...