Europe

Jon von Tetzchne, Internet browser Vivaldi’s founder, launched last week, said in a Reuters interview that the target is to attract five million monthly users to become profitable.

The development of Vivaldi lasted 15, with a cost aroud 50 million crowns norwegian ($6.07 million) of his own money. Intentions of Oslo based company’boss is to achieve users from the most popular browser as Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari and Opera. "A few years ago everyone started simplifying their browsers and they removed many of the features that the so-called power users wanted. This is the segment we are targeting", he said.

Finance ministers of the European Union will discuss next week put limits on exposure that banks have to sovereign debt, according to an EU document.

The EU countries have debated for months whether they review the status enjoyed by public debt used to finance the states, but during the financial crisis of the eurozone joined a "vicious circle" of dependence between states and banks. Sovereign bonds are considered risk-free and are exempt from the limits that banks have over other types of corporate or personal debt. EU countries have been cautious about their treatment for fear of affecting markets and financial stability of the institutions.

Car registrations in Europe are also rising in March for the thirty-first consecutive month, drag on the performance double digit and Italy with Fiat Chrysler growing faster than the market. According to data published by ACEA, the European car manufacturers’ association, in the month of car registrations (EU + EFTA) have marked a rise by 5.7% to 1.745 million vehicles; in the first quarter of the year the increase was 8.1% to 3.931 million.

In terms of volume, emphasizes a statement, the March result comes close to the record levels of 2007, just before the outbreak of the crisis that hit the entire automotive industry. The month of March, adds Acea, also showed lower sales days than last year because of the Easter holiday.

Jose Manuel Soria, Minister of Industry of the Spanish Government, has resigned after his name was in fact associated with an offshore company of those that have been mentioned in 11.5 million revealed to the press documents from an inside mole to law firm Mossack Fonseca. The name of Soria appears in top secret list.

"I sent my irrevocable decision to resign," he wrote the minister, "in view of the obvious damage that this situation due to the Government and People’s Party" by Mariano Rajoy.
He previously served as Prime Minister of Iceland to have left office a few days after the scandal broke.

Barclays, the second largest bank in the United Kingdom, will leave the Italian credit market within two years and is ready to relinquish the portfolio of loans (performing and non), amounting to 15 billion dollars (13 billion euro). After leaving now Spain and Portugal, the choice to leave the Italian consumer market is consistent with the strategy to focus on investment and corporate banking sector and reposition itself on the US and British markets.

he EU finance ministers will discuss in the summit next week five different options to reduce the exposure of banks to sovereign debt.

According to Reuters from official EU sources, noting that on the table there will be cases such as the imposition of ceilings or financial disincentives to the holding of government bonds, currently considered as risk-free asset and therefore exempt from such imposed limits on debt of companies or families.

One option is to limit the exposure of banks to a single sovereign issuer, said one of the sources. Another is to introduce a weighting nothing for the risk on the sovereign, but also on the table the proposal to impose a combination of the two elements.

Ahead of the June referendum on Brexit, for and against Britain staying in the EU they are neck and neck, respectively, with 39% of the vote, while the undecided represent 17% and those who will abstain 5 %.

And ‘what emerges from a survey conducted by’ YouGov ‘and published by the’ Times’ from which it also appears that confidence in the British Prime Minister David Cameron has dropped eight percentage points. The survey was conducted questioning 1,693 people between 11 and 12 April.

Nestlé published its results today. No major information came out of it. The results were better than expected, with an organic growth as high as 3.9%, above what analysts were expecting (3.6%) and a Revenue Internal Growth (3%) (i.e. a sales growth adjusted for takeovers, disinvestments, price fluctuations and currency) was also higher than the consensus (2.5%).