The Guardian says that Britain’s ‘Big Four’ banks – comprised of Lloyds, HSBC, RBS and Barclays – will have cut 189,000 jobs worldwide in just five years by the end of 2013.

Financial Times says that Germany’s largest banks including Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank came up €14bn short of meeting the new Basel III capital requirements by the end of 2012.

The Times says that Chinese property developer Advanced Business Park is to create a £1.0bn two million square-foot business park next to the London City airport which could create thousands of new jobs.

Christian Noyer, the Governor of the Bank of France, has warned that a proposed financial transactions tax could “destroy” parts of France’s banking industry and that the government instead needs to make unpopular spending cuts, writes The Telegraph.

France, Spain and the Netherlands, three of the EU’s five-largest economies. will be allowed to overshoot the annual 3.0% budget deficit limit, the European Commission is expected to announce, according to the Financial Times.

Electricals retailer Darty could slash jobs in an effort to cut costs in its core French region as it copes with a weaker economy, The Independent reports.

“The number of households insulating their homes has dramatically fallen this year, threatening to torpedo the Government’s energy efficiency drive and push utility bills even higher,” according to The Times. The paper says that cavity wall insulation was fitted in just 1,138 houses in April, down from nearly 40,000 the year before.