Bloomberg Chinese regulators ordered Jack Ma’s online financial titan Ant Group Co. to return to its roots as a provider of payments services, threatening to throttle growth in its most lucrative businesses of consumer loans and wealth management. The central bank summoned Ant executives over the weekend and told them to “rectify” the company’s lending, insurance and wealth management services, ...

Bloomberg Vietnam’s economic growth accelerated in the fourth quarter as exports and manufacturing extended their recovery from the pandemic slump earlier this year. Gross domestic product (GDP) rises 4.48% in the fourth quarter compared to a year earlier, up from a revised 2.69% in the third quarter, the General Statistics Office said. That compared to the median estimate of 4.0% ...

Bloomberg Indonesia has decided to impose a temporary ban on all foreigners from visiting the country on concern over the spread of a new variant of the coronavirus. The restriction will apply from January 1 to 14, with exceptions given to official visits by those holding ministerial-level positions or higher, said Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi in a Monday briefing. Non-citizens ...

Bloomberg A tug-of-war is building for Thailand’s baht as concern about the nation’s virus outbreak counters the support from its current account surplus. Tailwinds for the baht are fading after it breached the key level of 30 per dollar as a jump in domestic infections weighs on economic growth. Traders are now trying to determine if the currency’s recent pullback ...

Bloomberg President Donald Trump’s continued effort to overturn the November 3 election results got a front-page rebuke from one his most loyal backers: the New York Post. “Mr President, it’s time to end this dark charade,” the New York City tabloid’s editorial board wrote in Monday’s edition. The paper, which endorsed Trump for president, tells Trump to “Give it up,” ...

Bloomberg China has sentenced a former lawyer to four years in prison over her posts about the coronavirus response in Wuhan, media reports said, the first known conviction of someone who chronicled authorities’ early struggle to manage the outbreak. Zhang Zhan, 37, was convicted at the Shanghai Pudong New Area People’s Court on Monday of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble,” ...

Bloomberg A ban on political campaign rallies in some parts of Uganda ahead of the January 14 elections is meant to stymie President Yoweri Museveni’s rivals, according to the opposition. The Electoral Commission’s suspension of campaign meetings in at least 12 of Uganda’s 146 districts is expected to hamper Museveni’s main challenger, pop star Bobi Wine, who’s yet to hold ...

Bloomberg Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, facing the biggest protests of his 26-year rule, will gather a convention of his supporters in February in an effort to break the gridlock that has paralysed his country’s political life since August. A two-day Belarusian People’s Congress will start on February 11, state-owned news agency Belta reported on Monday, citing Lukashenko at a meeting ...

Bloomberg Prime Minister Boris Johnson said major changes are coming in the UK as the result of the trade deal his government negotiated with the European Union (EU), completing the country’s separation from the bloc, the Telegraph reported. “We can’t sort of suddenly decide that we’re free and then not decide how to exercise it,” Johnson told the Sunday Telegraph ...

Bloomberg UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak said the trade deal reached with the European Union (EU) should reassure people worried about the economic damage of Brexit and can be an “enormously unifying moment for our country.” London will continue discussions with Brussels over access and equivalence for financial services, the chancellor said after Prime Minister Boris Johnson said ...