Thursday newspaper round-up: Northern Rock, emerging markets, bank regulations

The Treasury and Financial Services Authority are heading for a clash over a proposal to allow bidders for Northern Rock's "good" bank to take about £500 million out of the lender. The Treasury is keen to achieve a price of £1 billion and is exploring the idea of allowing the successful bidder to liberate about half of it after the deal, sources said, according to the Times.Europe's banking woes have begun to set off a funding crunch in the emerging markets of Asia, Latin America, and Eastern Europe, leaving them nakedly exposed as the rich world slides into a double-dip downturn. Corporate bond issuance has collapsed by three-quarters over the past three months in these regions, touching the lowest level since depths of the Great Recession in early 2009, according to Bloomberg data, the Telegraph reports.Global banking regulators have brushed off criticism from bank chief executives, saying that they will press ahead with plans for capital surcharges on the largest and most interconnected global banks starting in 2016. The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision said that it plans to make some technical adjustments to the way global systemically important financial institutions, known as G-Sifis, are classified, But people close to the process said that they are unlikely to change the rankings, the Financial Times. Stagecoach has hit back at Labour after it was singled out as the sort of "predator" business that Ed Miliband attacked in his party conference speech on Tuesday. Maria Eagle, the Shadow Transport Secretary, is understood to have claimed the bus company was a "bad business", taking unjustified rewards of the kind Mr Miliband had criticised, according to the Times.Lloyds Banking Group's attempt to drum up a competitive auction for its 632 branches has been dealt a blow by a sharp increase in the cost of the credit line it has pledged to provide bidders. As the September 28 deadline for offers passed on Wednesday, only NBNK tabled an indicative bid - of around £1.5bn, reports the Telegraph.British banks have been advised to cut their dividends and bonuses in order to strengthen their balance sheets by the financial sector's new super-regulator. The Bank of England's Financial Policy Committee (FPC), which is due to take over the powers of the Financial Services Authority, released a statement yesterday warning about rising risks of disruption to financial stability in the UK as a result of the eurozone crisis, the Independent reports.The Financial Services Authority is sitting in on board meetings of the some of the biggest firms in the City as it steps up its surveillance of those institutions it believes could pose a major risk to the financial system. In an attempt to rectify some of the criticism it faced in the wake of the collapse of Northern Rock, the FSA is now demanding access to the inner workings of big banks and other high-risk groups as part of what Hector Sants, the chief executive of the City regulator, regards as an "eyeball-to- eyeball" approach to regulation, says the Guardian.From next week Ryanair's new prepaid MasterCard will become the only free payment method when booking flights with the airline - and the Daily Mail can reveal the terms and conditions of the card. Currently, passengers can dodge the £6 Ryanair each way administration fee by using any prepaid MasterCard. However, the airline will change the rules so that only bookings made with its own brand MasterCard prepaid card will enable passengers to dodge the fees. For every transaction and withdrawal abroad, card holders will be charged a whopping 5.75% foreign transaction fee, the paper reports.Retailers have been warned they face a "Christmas Day bloodbath" of closures and insolvencies as they get set to meet crunch quarter-day rental payments to their landlords today. The British Retail Consortium played down fears that today's payment round would repeat the carnage of June when big retail names like Habitat were forced into administration because they could not pay their rent. But it warned it was only delaying the inevitable, the Daily Express reports.