The federal government has withheld part of its 150-million-euro bridge loan for insolvent air berlin. A part of the k-loan was repaid on friday, a spokesman for the airline said, without naming any sums.

Financial circles confirmed media reports that air berlin had repaid a good 40 million euros to k. "B.Z."And "bild"-newspaper had reported about it.

Van rompuy buried greeks’ efforts to consolidate their economy and urged athens to continue its austerity efforts. "The greek people have made significant steps forward. But efforts must continue with further reforms," van rompuy said after a meeting with greek head of government antonis samaras.

With the implementation of the austerity pact, greece will soon have a "robust economy and administration". "I have no doubt that greece’s future is in the eurozone," said van rompuy. But the prerequisite, he said, was that the reforms were realized.

Maybe the suitcases are already packed: after the awarding of school certificates, the summer holidays start tomorrow in bavaria. Even more important than the right clothes and the toothbrush – you can buy everything locally – is money. Readers of this newspaper were given tips on how to put together the right vacation cash box during our telephone campaign on the subject of "safe travel". On the editorial phone, banking experts markus fosel (sparkasse bamberg) and johannes sebald (volksbank forchheim) answered our questions. The following is a summary.

There is so much talk about contactless payments with girocards or credit cards. What are the advantages and is it really secure??
The main advantage is the speed. On the one hand, there is no need to insert the card into a reader, and on the other hand, PIN entry is not usually necessary for amounts of up to 25 euros. It is enough to use the card ca. To hold the card four centimeters in front of the contactless card reader. Contactless payment uses the same high security mechanisms of the EMV chip as traditional payment methods with girocard or credit card.