Weekly Global News Wrap Up: German banks may heighten senior preferred bond sales; US moves to rewrite low-income lending rules

And two Kazakh banks just had their licenses revoked.

From Bloomberg: German lenders are reveling in a new-found freedom to sell low-cost senior preferred bonds after the government last month rewrote debt rules that had driven up their borrowing costs. The banks also benefit from debt cushions that surpass requirements by tens of billions of euros -- something other European lenders can only dream of as they work to close gaping shortfalls.

German banks “can issue senior preferred bonds at quite good levels, as they have such large buffers,” said Suvi Platerink Kosonen, a bank credit analyst at ING Groep NV. “The rest of Europe is coming from a different direction -- building buffers little by little.”

From Reuters: A federal regulator said on Tuesday it is seeking input on rewriting decades-old rules aimed at encouraging bank lending in low-income communities which were last updated in the 1990s. 

The rules are aimed at preventing discriminatory lending and so-called redlining by requiring banks to extend mortgages and other types of credit to low-income communities where they take deposits.

From CNBC: Kazakhstan's central bank has revoked the banking licenses of small lenders Qazaq Banki and Eximbank Kazakhstan, it said on Tuesday, citing repeated breaches of regulations by both institutions. Both banks had their retail deposit licenses suspended earlier this year. The central bank said on Tuesday it had appointed temporary management at both banks, and would seek their liquidation in court.