Morning business round-up: G7 deal calms yen

What made the business news and moved the markets in Asia and Europe this morning? Here's our daily business round-up:

Finance ministers from the G7 group of the world's richest nations agreed to step into currency markets in a bid to control the volatility in Japan's yen.

The yen weakened sharply against the US dollar after news of the plan.

At the same time, more details emerged of manufacturers facing disruption to their supply chain due to the earthquake in Japan.

Market reaction to the G7 deal was positive, with the Nikkei closing 2.7% higher and European markets making gains in morning trading. But oil prices rose further in response to the UN's decision to authorise a no-fly zone over Libya.

European banks have been digesting the implications of the European Banking Authority's requirements for a new round of stress tests. The EBA says the new tests will be much stricter than last year's and will require banks to disclose their full exposure to sovereign debt.

However, banks will not have to consider the impact of a formal default by a European government - a key criticism of the previous tests that failed to anticipate the collapse of Irish banks last year.

On the Singapore stock exchange, shares in Hutchison Whampoa's port business slumped 6% on their market debut. The share sale was the biggest initial public offering executed through Singapore's markets.

In the UK, mortgage lending remained at low levels in February as the housing market remained "stuck in a rut", the Council of Mortgage Lenders said.

And the UK's small businesses prepared for the unveiling of changes designed to ease the burden of red tape. Under the plan, small businesses would be given a three-year moratorium on new regulation.

Now that cloud computing is taking off on a massive scale, the BBC News website's business editor, Tim Weber, has been finding out what companies should look out for as they move their information technology into the cloud.

Finally, for a listen to some of the wider trends in the world of business and economics, click through to our Business Daily podcast. In this edition, we look at the possibility of another oil shock following the events in Japan and Libya, as well as the EU's sovereign debt woes.