Australia's banking sector reacted with fury Wednesday to a government plan to slug lenders with a hefty new levy, calling it a "naive" tax grab that sent the wrong signal to global financial markets.

Growth in global bond, real estate and money market funds continues to swell the world's "shadow banking" sector, which provides

Cuba represents a "huge" but challenging opportunity for US cruise, airline and hotel companies as American visitors to the Caribbean island could increase as much as sevenfold by 2025, according to a report by the Boston Consulting Group.

Toyota on Wednesday reported its first drop in annual net profit for five years, while the Japanese car giant unexpectedly warned that the cost of customer incentives and a further pickup in the yen threatened to dig further into its bottom line.

Britain needs to strike post-Brexit trade deals with countries such as Turkey and South Africa as well as the European Union, Ford said on Wednesday, underlining the scale of the challenge facing Prime Minister Theresa May to meet business demands.

The pullback in China's imports in April of crude oil and major bulk commodities, except coal, is more of a reminder that strong gains can't last forever than a warning that demand is waning in the world's biggest importer of natural resources.

Norway plans to launch the first autonomous and fully electric cargo ship next year that the project's backers said Wednesday will save 40,000 truck journeys per year.

Digital currency bitcoin hit a record high on Tuesday as demand for crypto-assets soared with the creation of new tokens to raise funding for start-ups using blockchain technology.

Small business owners trying to break into international markets say US trade policies and the strong dollar affect their ability to export, states a report released Tuesday.

Earlier this year, engineers at Wal-Mart Stores Inc who track rivals' prices online got a rude surprise: the technology they were using to check Amazon.com several million times a day suddenly stopped working.

The European Union plans to launch more antitrust investigations into e-commerce companies after a two-year inquiry uncovered practices that restrict competition, the European Commission said on Wednesday.

Apple Inc became the first US company to top the $800 billion mark in market capitalization on Tuesday, slightly more than two years after it crossed the $700 billion threshold.

With a booming trade in diamond cutting and textile manufacturing, the port city of Surat in India's western state of Gujarat is a melting pot for migrants from across the country seeking work and business opportunities.

Preparing a meeting of the Group of 20 economic powers is like "herding cats", German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Wednesday as her officials try to reach consensus among the group ahead of a leaders' summit she will host in July.

It is a sign of Apple's success but also a thorny problem: its cash stockpile has hit a staggering $256.8 billion, sparking debate on what do with such massive reserves.

Despite an agreement reached Tuesday on a reform package, Europe still needs to provide "credible" debt relief to Greece before the International Monetary Fund can provide more financing, an IMF official said.

US bank JPMorgan will move hundreds of staff from London to Dublin, Frankfurt and Luxembourg as part of their Brexit plans, the firm's head of investment banking said Wednesday.

Private US companies hired at a slightly slower pace in April, with new employment nearly entirely in the services sector, payroll firm ADP reported Wednesday.

German carmaker Volkswagen on Wednesday confirmed its forecasts for 2017 after boosting revenue and profits in the first quarter, even as its emissions cheating scandal continues to make headlines.

Mahindra & Mahindra has stopped selling its electric car in the United Kingdom due to meagre sales and is winding up operations there, according to a document seen by Reuters, in a setback for the Indian automaker's global ambitions.