The UK house prices rose for the consecutive second month in January 2016. The UK property market demand is growing in the wake of lower interest rates and encouraging job growth rate. The average cost of a house in the UK was up 1.7 percent in January.

The Dutch banking major ING Groep's revenues for the fourth quarter were above the analysts' forecasts. ING's exposure to the oil companies is putting pressure on its stock, which suffered 20 percent drop. However, ING is also receiving indirect benefits from lower oil prices.

Gold soared to three-month high early this week as investors switched over to safe have following the concerns about the global economy. The US Federal Reserve indicated a challenging global economy and this may not prevent it from raising interest rate. Gold price reached to $1,127.80 on 27 January and this propelled investors to book profits.

A bitcoin startup Digital Asset Holdings has received funding from major banks. It will work closely with investors on research and commercialization of bitcoin technology applications. Digital Asset said that it has raised over $50 million funding from 13 investors. The list of investors includes JPMorgan Chase & Com, Citigroup Inc, BNP Paribas SA, CME Group Inc and Accenture Plc.

Feeling the heat of competition in the global payments industry, American Express (AmEx) is in the process of reducing costs by $1billion by end of 2017. AmEx posted losses for the fourth quarter consecutively. The net income dropped from $1.44 billion to $873 million or 80 cents per share for the quarter. The forecast for this year disappointed investors and analysts.

The falling oil price below $30 per barrel is impacting Canadian economy, which mostly depends upon commodities. Along with oil price, Canadian currency Loonie too declined against the US dollar. The weaker Loonie has eroded the purchasing power of Canada and is making imports costlier. Canada imports vegetables from the US. The surging US dollar made vegetables prices expensive by three folds for Canadian consumers.

The debt burden of South African farmers reached to over Rand 125 billion ($7.5 billion). The total debt of farmers was up 14 percent in 2015 to Rand117 billion. Economists alert that the prevailing slump in commodities markets, tighter monetary, fiscal policy, drought conditions and drop in value of Rand will trigger higher than expected inflation rate.

Japan’s Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group is said to have agreed to buy a 20 percent stock in Philippines' lender Security Bank Corp for $773 million (36.9 billion pesos), as an effort to strengthen its growth in Southeast Asia.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. has finally agreed to pay $5.1 billion on Wednesday to resolve a seven years’ pending dispute over faulty mortgage securities. The penalty amount remains lower compared to those counted by other Wall Street competitors. Fourth quarter profit of the firm may be hit by the penalty counting. But investors welcome the settlement and its share price rises by 1.5% on Thursday.

The weakening business confidence coupled with global economic challenges is impacting the UK manufacturing sector in more negative way. Despite odds forecast for 2016, majority of manufacturing firms in the UK are going ahead with their investment plan for technology and innovation. About 44 percent of UK companies participated in a survey expressed their concerns about challenging 2016 year.