Consumer confidence in Germany appears to be holding up, even though retail sales in Europe's top economy fell for the second month in a row, data showed on Thursday.

"The first survey after the parliamentary elections paints a calm picture," market research company GfK said in a statement.

The European Central Bank said Thursday that its current temporary bilateral liquidity swap arrangements with five other central banks will remain in place until further notice.

"The Bank of Canada, the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan, the European Central Bank, the Federal Reserve, and the Swiss National Bank announced on Thursday that their existing temporary bilateral liquidity swap arrangements are being converted to standing arrangements, that is, arrangements that will remain in place until further notice," the ECB said in a statement.

Rail passengers using Turkey's new tunnel under the Bosphorus had to walk part of their journey Wednesday when an electricity failure briefly halted services, just a day after its grand opening.

The 13.6-kilometre (8.5 mile) undersea tunnel in Istanbul -- the world's first linking two continents -- was inaugurated with great fanfare on Tuesday as the government's "project of the century".

Spain's National Statistics Institute says the economy grew in the third quarter, confirming preliminary estimates that show an end to the two-year recession.

The institute said Wednesday the economy grew 0.1 percent July through September compared with the previous quarter, when it shrank by the same rate. That was the same estimate made by the central bank last week.

Economic and business confidence in the 17-nation eurozone picked up further in October but the pace of improvement has slowed, official EU data showed on Wednesday.

The European Commission said its Economic Sentiment Indicator (ESI) rose 0.9 points to 97.8 points in October.

Niger has accepted a controversial $1 billion loan from the Export-Import Bank of China (China Exim Bank) to finance development projects, the West African nation's planning minister said Tuesday.

Repayment of the 25-year loan will start in eight years' time "thanks to resources from the sale of oil being produced" by China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) in the east of the country, Amadou Boubacar Cisse announced.

Renewed questions about the economy's health and uncertainty surrounding the government's budget fight will likely lead the Federal Reserve on Wednesday to maintain the pace of the stimulus it's supplying to the economy.

That expectation marks a reversal from just six weeks ago, when almost everyone expected the Fed to start trimming its $85 billion in monthly bond purchases. The bond buying is intended to keep long-term interest rates low to help the economy rebound from the Great Recession.

Washington's intensifying hunt for tax evaders and their accomplices is creating a state of paranoia in the Swiss banking industry, with many bankers afraid to even leave the country, observers say.

"There are many hundreds, up to a thousand (Swiss bankers and others who have worked directly with U.S. clients) who are afraid of travelling to the United States or even to leave Switzerland," Martin Naville, the head of the Swiss-American Chamber of Commerce, told Agence France Presse.

Lloyds Banking Group swung into profit during the first nine months of the year, the British state-rescued bank said on Tuesday as it looks to return to the private sector.

LBG reported net profit of £256 million ($412 million, 299 million euros) in the nine months to September 30 compared with a loss of £1.0 billion during the equivalent period in 2012.

Prime Minister David Cameron is launching a new Islamic Market Index on the London Stock Exchange on Tuesday, part of a wider British effort to tap into the burgeoning market in Islamic finance.

According to prepared remarks released to journalists ahead of time, Cameron is expected to say that the British capital is "the biggest center for Islamic finance outside the Islamic world. And today our ambition is to go further still."