Weekly Global News Wrap Up: Greece cracks down on $47b bad debt burden; HSBC Africa fined $1.1m

And foreigners can now own up to 25% of Abu Dhabi Islamic bank.

From Bloomberg: Greece’s central bank is working on a plan to help banks cut their bad debts in half, the latest effort to restore trust in the country’s financial system.

Under the proposal, Greek lenders would transfer about half of their deferred tax claims to a special purpose vehicle, which would then sell bonds and use the proceeds to buy some 42 billion euros ($47 billion) of bad loans from the lenders, sources told Bloomberg. 

“We urgently need something like a bad bank, an asset management company,” Bank of Greece Governor Yannis Stournaras said at an event in Geneva. 

From CNBC: South Africa's central bank on Friday fined HSBC's local business 15 million rand ($1.1 million) for weaknesses in its processes meant to detect money laundering and terrorism financing, and ordered the bank to fix the problems.

"Certain weaknesses were identified in HSBC's processes which inhibited HSBC from proactively detecting potential money laundering and the financing of terrorism," the PA said in a statement. It added HSBC was not found to have facilitated any transactions involving money laundering or the financing of terrorism.

From Bloomberg: Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank, the United Arab Emirates' second biggest bank in compliance with Muslim banking rules has obtained the Abu Dhabi Executive Council Approval to allow foreigners to own up to 25% of its shares. 

The board decided to implement the decision Nov.19, according to a statement.