Banks, Cyprus | featured news

Some key data about bond purchases by Bank of Cyprus - now the focus of a controversial EU-IMF bailout - is missing, investigators have found. The gaps were found in computer records studied by a financial consultancy, Alvarez and Marsal, Cypriot media say.

Successive Slovenian governments have refused to privatize the country's banks, which made disastrous loans to politically connected business interests and now threaten to drag the country center stage in the euro zone debt crisis.

Michalis Sarris resigned after announcing the final terms of a bailout for the nation’s banking system that imposed heavy losses on bank depositors in return for aid.

Cyprus has imposed limits on money transfers and hired extra security guards to prepare for the reopening of its banks, which have been shut for almost two weeks to avoid a run during the country's financial drama.

The Central Bank of Cyprus says the country's finance minister has decided to order all banks in the country to remain shut until Thursday.

The European Central Bank is prepared to cut off funding to Cyprus and let the Mediterranean island succumb to financial meltdown if it has to, confident it has unlimited firepower to protect the rest of the euro zone.

The finance minister of the island nation, Vassos Shiarly, criticized international lenders on Friday for imposing losses on banks with exposure to Greece.