VIENNA, Nov 21 (Reuters) – Three Austrian banks with
big businesses in central and eastern Europe have to fulfil
Basel III capital rules in full from January 2013, regulators
said, moving the timetable up by six years to boost safety in
the system.

The steps cover UniCredit unit Bank
Austria, Erste Group Bank and Raiffeisen Bank
International, which officials said had accepted the
guidelines and would stay in the region.

VIENNA, Nov 18 (Reuters) – It is not just France that
now risks sinking into trouble in the euro zone’s debt crisis,
with a string of the bloc’s “core” AAA-rated countries under
pressure to prove financial strength that markets no longer take
for granted.

France’s cost of borrowing has jumped by more than half a
percentage point on worries that high public debt and its banks’
holdings of other governments’ bonds leave it exposed to the
collapse of markets in Greece, Spain and particularly Italy.

VIENNA, Nov 18 (Reuters) – Raiffeisen Bank
International AG (RBI) has managed to make a profit in
the third quarter despite high writedowns in Hungary, its
unlisted parent RZB said on Friday.

Raiffeisen Zentralbank (RZB) also estimated the Raiffeisen
group would need an extra 600 million euros ($810.8 million) in
capital by mid-2012 to meet regulatory targets.

VIENNA, Nov 15 (Reuters) – Austria will try to balance
its budget faster than first planned and use a constitutional
debt brake to get a firmer grip on public finances and protect
its triple-A rating, officials said on Tuesday.

The steps come amid mounting market pressure on euro zone
members to reduce debt and some market talk that Austria — one
of only six top-rated sovereigns using the euro currency –
could drop out of the club.

VIENNA (Reuters) – Very low levels of radioactive iodine-131 have been detected in the Czech Republic and elsewhere in Europe but the particles are not believed to pose a public health risk, the U.N. nuclear agency said on Friday.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, the Vienna-based U.N. watchdog, said it was seeking to determine the source but that it was not believed to come from Japan’s stricken Fukushima plant after its nuclear emergency in March.

VIENNA, Oct 28 (Reuters) – Erste Bank ruled out
taking more state aid from Austria as emerging Europe’s
second-biggest lender tries to fill an estimated capital
shortfall of nearly 750 million euros ($1.06 billion) by
mid-2012.

A first tranche of non-voting state capital the bank got in
2009 was on “very friendly” terms, Chief Executive Andreas
Treichl told a conference call on Friday after the bank released
a well-flagged quarterly loss of 1.49 billion euros.

MOSCOW/VIENNA, Oct 21 (Reuters) – Vimpelcom is not
interested in buying a stake in Telekom Austria , a
source said on Friday, after a report that an investor group
planned to sell shares to the Russian telecoms group.

Austrian magazine Format reported, without citing sources,
that an investor group led by businessman Ronny Pecik planned to
sell a stake it was building in Telekom Austria to Vimpelcom and
its ally Turkcell .

BUDAPEST/VIENNA, Oct 21 (Reuters) – While euro zone leaders
plan to use taxpayers’ money to shore up their banks, Hungary’s
prime minister is in a “fight” against the nation’s lenders and
is piling pressure on them as he tries to jump-start consumer
spending.

And, for the banks at least, it may be about to get worse.

Viktor Orban has already slapped them with an extraordinary
tariff to offset personal income tax cuts and launched a
campaign to cut a huge level of foreign currency debt that is
expected to cause big losses for financial institutions.