Kendra Harrell’s home, second from left, in West Baltimore. Many houses in Baltimore were built when lead paint was common during the first half of the 20th century. CreditAl Drago/The New York Times

BALTIMORE — A year after Tiffany Bennett moved into a two-story red brick house at 524 Loudon Avenue here, she received alarming news.

Two children, both younger than 6, for whom Ms. Bennett was guardian, were found to have dangerous levels of lead in their blood. Lead paint throughout the nearly 100-year-old home had poisoned them…

Seller-Financed Deals Are Putting Poor People in Lead-Tainted Homes

The Justice Department said Barclays’ actions in the packaging and sale of what are known as residential mortgage-backed securities in the years leading to the financial crisis injured tens of thousands of investors when the housing market collapsed. CreditKevin Coombs/Reuters

LONDON — United States authorities have accused the British bank Barclays and two former executives of fraudulently misleading the public in the sale of tens of billions of dollars in securities backed by home mortgages.

The Justice Department filed a lawsuit Thursday in Federal District Court in Brooklyn after the two sides failed to reach a settlement despite months of talks…

• Downgrade reflects struggle to return to a balanced budget
• Rating lowered to AA- from AA, with a stable outlook

Fitch Ratings cut Belgium’s credit rating for the first time in almost five years as the government struggles to reach its goal of returning to a balanced budget.

In a statement Friday, Fitch announced a one-step reduction to AA- from AA. That’s equivalent to Belgium’s credit score of Aa3 at Moody’s and one step below the AA rating assigned by Standard & Poor’s. The outlook on the rating is stable, Fitch said.

John Cryan, chief executive of Deutsche Bank, at a conference in Berlin in June.CreditJohn Macdougall/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Deutsche Bank announced late on Thursday that it had reached a tentative $7.2 billion deal to resolve a federal investigation into its sale of toxic mortgage securities, capping months of negotiations that weighed heavily on the bank’s stock price and reputation.

The civil settlement requires the bank, Germany’s largest, to pay a $3.1 billion penalty and provide relief to American consumers valued at $4.1 billion, the bank said in a statement that came ahead of a formal announcement in the case. The consumer portion of the settlement, the bank said, is expected to be “primarily in the form of loan modifications and other assistance to homeowners.”…

• Republicans face disagreement over how far changes should go
• Banks may resist CFPB overhaul after costly compliance efforts

Richard Cordray.

Photographer: Alex Wong/Getty Images

Donald Trump and Republican lawmakers have made no secret of their desire to remove shackles put on banks by the Dodd-Frank Act, and taking an ax to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is one of their top priorities.

But transforming stump speeches that vilified Elizabeth Warren’s favorite regulator into actual change is easier said than done for a variety of reasons. They include disagreements among Republicans about how far to go and opposition to blowing up the CFPB from an unlikely source: bankers…

• Finance Ministry to split into two: Finance and Economy
• Caputo will become Finance Minister, Dujovne Economy Minister

Alfonso Prat Gay

Photographer: Louis Lanzano/Bloomberg

Alfonso Prat-Gay was fired as Argentina’s Finance Minister Monday after just one year in the post as a long-heralded recovery in the economy fails to materialize.

The ministry he headed will now be split into two, with Luis Caputo, who was finance secretary, heading the new Finance Ministry and Nicolas Dujovne overseeing the Economy Ministry, Cabinet Chief Marcos Pena told a press conference in Buenos Aires. Prat-Gay’s spokeswoman Yael Bialostozky didn’t reply to calls seeking response…

Deutsche Bank on Wall Street. Investors were relieved this week when the bank reached a $7.2 billion settlement with the Justice Department to end an investigation into the sale of toxic mortgage securities.CreditMark Kauzlarich/Bloomberg

European banks have rushed to cut deals with prosecutors over longstanding claims that they pushed toxic mortgage securities in the years before the financial crisis.

The payouts are steep: Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse said that they would disgorge nearly $13 billion combined to settle with the United States Justice Department.

In the span of just 12 hours, three U.S. enforcement matters left over from the financial crisis made significant progress: Deutsche Bank AG and Credit Suisse Group AG separately announced that they would pay a combined $12.5 billion to resolve U.S. investigations into their sales of toxic mortgage debt, whereas Barclays Plc chose to roll the dice and let the Justice Department file a fraud lawsuit over its debt sales. Before these latest two deals, the U.S. investigations had already yielded more than $46 billion from six U.S. financial institutions…

A Sudden Burst of Activity on Mortgage Litigation

Creditors of Caesars Entertainment Operating Co. resolved a standoff that had threatened to scuttle a plan to bring the casino giant out of bankruptcy.

Senior lenders to the insolvent company dropped their objection to the terms of the plan after Caesars filed revisions on Friday in Chicago federal court.

The lenders had been demanding changes to documents governing $2 billion in new debt that Las Vegas-based Caesars would issue to the group as part of its reorganization. Senior bondholders had opposed those changes, people familiar with the dispute said…

Caesars Reorganization Back on Track After Lenders Reach Accord

Europe’s stability fund can go ahead with short-term debt relief measures for Greece that will ease the nation’s payment obligations.

“I’m happy to conclude that we have cleared the way for the European Stability Mechanism to go ahead with the decision-making procedures for the short-term debt measures, which will be conducted in January,” Eurogroup Chairman Jeroen Dijsselbloem said in an e-mailed statement on Saturday, after he received a letter from Greek Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos…

Greek Short-Term Debt Measures Can Go Ahead, Dijsselbloem Says

Taking a helicopter to your vacation home is probably the most hassle-free way to commute, and it’s definitely the most expensive. (It’s also a surefire way to annoy your neighbors and ruin your foliage.) If you decide to make this your regular mode of transit, though, you’ll want a landing pad—and these properties each come armed with one ready for your personal Sikorsky. They’re spread around the world and vary dramatically in price, but each provides a small window into the culture of helicopter users in different corners of the globe…

A Look at Four Multimillion-Dollar Estates With Helipads

• U.S. sues over defaults on billions in securitized mortgages
• Investors were deceived about risk of securities, DOJ says

The U.S. Justice Department sued Barclays Plc for fraud over its sale of mortgage bonds after the bank balked at paying the amount the government sought in settlement negotiations.

The lawsuit announced on Thursday is rare for big banks, which typically negotiate a settlement with the government rather than risk drawn-out litigation and a possible trial. The breakdown in talks suggests that the bank is willing to take its chances with incoming enforcement officials in the Trump administration. The bank has lined up a law firm whose top lawyer is known for his aggressive defense of clients, including Lt. Col. Oliver North…

• Borrowers may claim back thousands in overcharged interest
• Court ruling puts more pressure on Spain’s struggling banks

Ivan Muniz is starting to think how he would spend the 6,000 euros ($6,300) he estimates he could win back from his bank for charging him too much for his Spanish mortgage.

“I would like to go traveling — to New York or maybe also London,” said Muniz, a steelworks quality-control inspector from Gijon in northern Spain. “It was time that someone put their fist down and said that what banks were charging wasn’t right.”

(Getty Images)

Let’s say you’re a major European bank still facing a multibillion-dollar fine over subprime-era mortgage misdeeds. At this juncture, you have two options. First, you can settle with the Obama Department of Justice, whose approach has favored big, eye-popping settlements in lieu of individual charges, with the possibility of not having to admit guilt.

Alternatively, you can hold out a month longer and see what happens under a Trump administration, which is essentially a giant question mark. The free-market conservative tilt of Trump’s cabinet appointments could signal a DOJ ready to retract its claws. But it’s equally conceivable that the Trump DOJ cranks up the populist-nationalist dial to 11…

• Chain focusing on preppy heritage, Madewell brand, discounting
• Some of company’s $2 billion in debt becomes current in 2018

J. Crew Group Inc. is heading into 2017 on a mission that gets more critical with each passing day: turn around a two-year sales slump or slam head-on into a wall of debt.

Some of the company’s $2 billion in debt becomes current in 2018, and J. Crew needs to revive its flagging business to stave off rising odds of default. To do that, the retailer is focusing on its preppy heritage, expanding its discount business and fueling the growth of its small but successful Madewell brand geared toward millennials. For some analysts, it may already be too late…

A branch of Lloyds Bank in London. The deal culminates years of upheaval and reorganization at the bank.CreditKirsty Wigglesworth/Associated Press

LONDON — Lloyds Banking Group will buy Bank of America’s British credit card business for about $2.4 billion, signaling a major turning point for Lloyds eight years after a government bailout.

The deal for the business, called MBNA Limited, will bolster Lloyds’s consumer finance business in Britain by adding about 7 billion pounds, or $8.7 billion, in assets. Lloyds also said its market share in the British credit card market would rise to more than a quarter from 15 percent, a level that would bring it closer to Barclays, the largest provider of credit cards in Britain with a share of nearly 30 percent…

• EU court ruling concerns ‘mortgage floors’ on Spanish loans
• Threat of retroactive repayments weighed on banking industry

Spanish banks, including Banco Popular Espanol SA and Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria SA, may have to give back billions of euros to mortgage customers after a final ruling by the European Union’s top court. Bank shares tumbled by as much as 10 percent.

Borrowers who paid too much interest on home loans pre-dating a May 2013 Spanish ruling on so-called mortgage floors are entitled to a refund from their banks, judges at the EU Court of Justice ruled in Luxembourg Wednesday…

A customer in a Monte dei Paschi di Siena bank branch in Siena, Italy, last week. The bank’s shares plunged on Wednesday. CreditAlessia Pierdomenico/Bloomberg

LONDON — Investors are increasingly sounding the alarms over Monte dei Paschi di Siena, the beleaguered Italian lender, as concerns mounted on Wednesday about its ability to raise new capital and avoid a government bailout.

The troubled Italian banking system, stuffed with dubious loans, has broadly put global policy makers and investors on alert for signs of a potential shock. And Monte dei Paschi, the country’s oldest bank, is in the weakest spot…

Tim Hudak

Photographer: Galit Rodan/Bloomberg

The head of a realtor group in Canada’s largest province said he’d support a program that would lend first-time buyers cash to buy houses and get them out of their parent’s basement.

Tim Hudak, chief executive officer of the Ontario Real Estate Association, said Wednesday he liked the newest housing announcement from British Columbia Premier Christy Clark, who announced last week her province would match down-payments of as much as C$37,500 ($27,980), or 5 percent of the purchase price, for new buyers…

Lend Millennials Cash for Houses, Ontario Realtor Chief Says

BBVA, one of Spain’s largest banks, said it expected a European Court of Justice ruling on Wednesday to reduce its profit by about 404 million euros. CreditAntonio Heredia/Bloomberg

MADRID — Europe’s highest court ruled on Wednesday that customers of banks in Spain can reclaim billions of euros because lenders did not pass on savings from interest rate cuts on variable-rate mortgages, sending shares in several of the country’s top lenders crashing.

The ruling centered on the use of a “floor clause” in Spanish mortgage contracts during the aftermath of the global financial crisis. Such agreements meant that the interest rate on an adjustable-rate mortgage was always held above a predetermined level, regardless of how low central bank rates fell…

• Established firms seek exclusive rights in threat to startups
• Beyond techno-utopian roots, blockchain seen reshaping finance

In the headlong rush to revolutionize modern finance, blockchain enthusiasts are overlooking one potentially costly problem: their applications, built on open-source code, may actually belong to someone else.

Recently, some of the biggest names in business, from Goldman Sachs to Bank of America and Mastercard, have quietly patented some of the most promising blockchain technologies for themselves. Through mid-November, the number of patents that companies have obtained or said they’ve applied for has roughly doubled since the start of the year, according to law firm Reed Smith…

A brokerage house in Shanghai in November. China’s stock market crashed last year, and its $9 trillion bond market is showing signs of distress. CreditAly Song/Reuters

SHANGHAI — Chinese officials cheered on the country’s stock market when it reached heady new highs, offering hope that it could become a new source of money to fix China’s economic problems. Then, last year, the market crashed.

Now another fast-growing part of China’s vast and increasingly complicated financial market is showing signs of distress: its $9 trillion bond market.

Small banks are not much better than big banks when it comes to the fees they charge customers who spend more than they have in their accounts.

That is the finding of a new report published on Tuesday by the Pew Charitable Trusts, which used “secret shoppers” to request information from 45 smaller banks from across the country, to examine their overdraft practices and penalty fees.

The findings are not surprising, said Lauren Saunders, associate director of the National Consumer Law Center. “Some smaller banks are far more addicted to overdraft fees than bigger banks,” she said…

• Current situation ‘is a turbulence, not a crisis’: Minister
• Ringgit set to weaken further to 4.52, according to analysts

Malaysia’s ringgit touched its lowest level since the Asian financial crisis in 1998, as investors continue to sell down emerging-market assets and after a crackdown on currency speculators last month exacerbated outflows.

The ringgit declined as much as 0.1 percent to 4.4805 per dollar, a level unseen since January 1998, according to prices from local banks compiled by Bloomberg, before trading at 4.4802 at 1:47 p.m. in Kuala Lumpur. The current situation “is a turbulence, not a crisis,” and the Malaysian currency will eventually recover back to its fair value, Second Finance Minister Johari Abdul Ghani told reporters…