Europeans are among the least insured against certain types of extreme weather and other natural disasters in the developed world, a predicament made more worrisome as the continent suffers a summer of devastating heat, wildfires and drought. In recent months, wildfires have destroyed property in Greece, a lack of rainfall has ravaged tomato and strawberry production in Spain, and low water levels have disrupted shipping along the Rhine, one of the continent’s largest shipping arteries. The...

Credit Suisse is one of a handful of global banks publicly disclosing some loans to poor countries, as most of the rest of the industry instead clings to secrecy, according to a fresh study. The Swiss bank, which was absorbed by UBS Group AG in a government-engineered takeover earlier this year, stands out for its relative transparency around such lending, according to research by UK nonprofit Debt Justice, which looked at multiple data sets spanning the past half decade and through the first...

Bank of America Corp. will arrange a $500 million debt swap for marine conservation in Gabon, as these types of deals gain in size and popularity, according to people familiar with the planned transaction. The deal, due to be announced in July, will involve The Nature Conservancy, a US-based conservation nonprofit, said the people, who declined to be identified. Until now, Credit Suisse Group AG has dominated this market, having run similar debt conversions for Belize, Barbados and...