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OECD: Advanced economies grew 0.4% in last quarter:  Growth has picked up in the world’s major developed economies, with the UK and US making up for the weakness of Japan and the eurozone.  That’s according to a new report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development reports. It says GDP across the 33 countries who make up the OECD area rose by 0.4% in April-June, up from 0.2% in January-March.  There was “a wide spectrum of patterns across countries”, though. Real quarterly growth in the US surged by 1%, followed by Britain with 0.8%.  Japan contracted by 1.7% as a new sales tax hit spending, Germany shrank by 0.2% and France was flat.  Over to Greece where the debt-stricken country’s central bank has devised a new “code of ethics” to deal with the ever worsening problem of non performing loans.  It’s a problem that has mirrored Greece’s seemingly never ending debt crisis: the issue of non performing loans. With some 35% of all lender loans no longer being serviced, the country’s central bank reckons that an estimated €75bn in total is currently owed to banks, among the largest amounts in global financial history and for a nation off just over 11 million proportionately by far the largest in the EU. “It’s the biggest headache for our banking system and a major drain on our ability to provide credit,” said one banker requesting anonymity. “The new code has been a priority over the summer.” Ahead of EU-wide stress tests in October, Greece’s central bank has now devised a new code (yet to be fine-tuned) that reportedly allows ‘compromise solutions’ to be found for lenders and debtors.   Rubber-stamped by the Committee of Credit and Insurance Matters on Monday the code, say insiders, foresees “haircuts” being extended to loans, revisions on interest repayments, the conversion of mortgages into rental contracts and the voluntary return of properties to banks (a way for lenders not to be seen to be forcibly requisitioning assets). Foreclosures will be activated if mortgage borrowers are seen to be deliberately uncooperative - with the collapse of property prices many Greeks, hit by austerity measures, simply gave up on repayments as the crisis intensified.   “Such steps have been taken in other [EU] countries to handle non performing loans. Frankly we’ve dragged our feet. It’s in no one’s interest to have this hanging,” said the banker. “All round this should be a relief.”   Former finance minister Yannis Stournaras who assumed the post of governor of the bank of Greece earlier this summer, is believed to be pushing hard for the code of ethics to be applied before the stress tests later this year.   Bankers have not hidden their concerns that Greek lenders may need big capital injections to survive (despite huge injections received so far) following the tests.