Bloomberg Standard Chartered Plc’s Nigerian unit is joining the rush to grab a larger share of the consumer-banking market in Africa’s most populous nation, targeting a five-fold increase in customers over the next two years. “Retail is where we’re going to see exponential growth,” Lamin Manjang, the chief executive officer for Standard Chartered’s Lagos-based subsidiary, said in an interview. “It’s ...

Bloomberg A public spat between a pair of Swiss banking giants that erupted almost four years ago is now finally ending with a payment. It began in 2015, when Credit Suisse Group AG accused crosstown rival UBS Group AG of unfairly poaching staff from its US private banking business. UBS Chief Executive Officer Sergio Ermotti personally shot back, insisting at ...

Bloomberg Greece plans to provide as much as 9 billion euros ($10 billion) in state guarantees to help its banks reduce a mountain of soured debt weighing on their balance sheets, according to two people with knowledge of the matter. The initiative, similar to a successful programme used in Italy, depends on antitrust officials in Europe ruling that it doesn’t ...

Bloomberg As investors were expected to brace for the Federal Reserve’s policy decision on Wednesday, one corner of the foreign-exchange market looks particularly nervous. Overnight volatility for South Africa’s rand rose to as much as 25 percent, the most since August 2018, before paring the steep climb to trade at levels last seen in early May. The rand, which is ...

Bloomberg Deutsche Bank AG Chief Executive Officer Christian Sewing is considering whether to appoint a new investment banking head after ousting Garth Ritchie during his recent restructuring, people familiar with the matter said. Sewing — who had assumed direct oversight after Ritchie’s departure — thinks it may make sense to relinquish the extra responsibility to focus fully on his CEO ...

Bloomberg Nissan Motor Co is seeking to sell a wholly owned subsidiary that distributes vehicle parts and materials in a deal that may be valued at about $1 billion, as the struggling Japanese automaker seeks to slim down, people familiar with the matter said. The company has invited private equity and trading firms to bid for 100 percent of Nissan ...

Bloomberg The trade spat between Japan and South Korea caused Korean visits to its neighbor to plunge by almost half in August, dragging down overall arrivals to Japan for only the second time in six years. Tourists from South Korea, which normally make up about a quarter of visitors to Japan, plummeted 48 percent to 308,700 people, according to the ...

Bloomberg India still ranks among the most expensive countries in the world in terms of fees charged on equity and hybrid mutual funds, even after implementation of a number of investor-friendly measures in recent years. The country’s asset-weighted median expense ratio for equity mutual funds is 1.93 percent, according to a study of by Morningstar Inc. That’s higher than all ...

Bloomberg The air quality level in Singapore turned unhealthy ahead of the Formula 1 race this weekend, while Kuala Lumpur was ranked among the world’s most polluted cities, as wind from neighboring Indonesia continued to sweep in ash and smoke from illegal burning of forests and farm land. Authorities cancelled schools for nearly one in seven Malaysian children as the ...

Bloomberg South Korea stocks, one of the worst-hit markets in the wake of US-China trade tensions, face another risk: the surge in crude oil prices. Nader Naeimi, head of dynamic markets at AMP Capital Investors, is selling Korean equities on concern rising geopolitical risks in the Middle East will raise oil prices, hurting the earnings of Korean firms. He’s turning ...