Cyprus has now got a deadline of Monday to form an agreement on the critical bailout deal, the New York Times has reported. The European Central Bank has warned that the country will now longer have access to the all important low-cost bank funding if no agreement is formed by the start of next week.

Standard Chartered has retracted its comments on its US sanction violations, the Wall Street Journal has said. Chairman of the group John Peace apologised for his comments made earlier this month and said they were "at best inaccurate". The director said his statement that the company "had no willful act to avoid sanctions" in fact directly contradicted its "acceptance of responsibility in the deferred prosecution agreement and accompanying factual statement".

Mortgage rates have declined of the course if this week, the Washington Post reported, saying that the 30-year fixed-rate average fell to 3.54% with an average 0.8 point, just one week after hitting its highest level in almost seven months. The 15-year fixed-rate average declined to 2.72% with an average 0.7 point, it added.

It quoted the President and Chief Economist at Freddie Mac as saying: "Low and stable inflation is placing downward pressure on fixed mortgage rates."

As reported by the New York Times, the situation in the Eurozone has continued to be worsening as the economy shows signs of slowing. March Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) data from Markit showed that the region registered its steepest rate of contraction in the last four months. The Eurozone Composite PMI for the month of March unexpectedly fell to 46.5 from February's 47.9, missing the 48.2 consensus estimate.

NR

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