When the French government unveiled its plan to make the national railway company more competitive and curtail benefit for some workers, commentators in France feared crippling protests comparable to those in 1995, when Alain Juppe’s government had to backtrack on rail sector reforms. Early signs were that President Emmanuel Macron would escape a similar fate. Polls showed support for his ...

Private equity has continuously cheering the fintech party. Francisco Capital’s purchase of electronic payments specialist VeriFone Systems Inc. helped to lift shares of French rival Ingenico Group SA on Tuesday amid speculation more deals will follow. All this looks more like a hangover cure than a new spin on the dance floor. While the underlying story of electronic payments is ...

Europe’s banks are eager to show that the money they’ve splurged on bolstering their compliance departments is paying off: HSBC Holdings Plc’s reporting of a suspicious transaction helped Angola recover $500 million linked to an alleged fraud involving the son of a former president. The bigger picture is less encouraging. Despite a cascade of rules, regulations and record-breaking fines, that ...

In recent weeks, investors witnessed a rare concurrence of market developments. Widespread concern about escalating trade conflicts caused equities to plunge and US Treasury yields to decline. So far, the reaction has been a textbook case of investor behaviour. Yet, for all the turmoil, the dollar did not prove to be a safe harbour, and has remained weak against major ...

In an op-ed published by the Wall Street Journal, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. Chairman Jack Ma made the case against escalating trade tensions between the world’s two most powerful economies. “Both Sides Would Lose a US-China Trade War,” was the headline. It’s the same argument I made a month ago, and I wasn’t the first because, frankly, it’s kind of ...

As lawmakers grill Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, it’s clear many are wrestling with whether and how the government should regulate tech companies. A recurring question is whether they have any inherent ideological biases. In his testimony to the Senate, Zuckerberg called Silicon Valley “an extremely left-leaning place.” While voter patterns at the regional level and likely the employee level at ...

Bloomberg Canadian banks have amassed their biggest war chest in five years — and they’re ready to use it. The country’s six largest lenders are approaching their strongest capital position since 2013, leaving them with enough resources to pursue acquisitions, buy back shares or build from within. That has the chiefs of Canada’s big banks weighing options. “It’s great to ...

TOKYO / Reuters The Bank of Japan mostly held an optimistic view on regional economies, in a sign of its conviction over a broadening recovery but warned that labour shortages and a US-China trade war could cloud the outlook. The central bank’s assessment in a report suggests it will probably maintain its upbeat growth and price forecasts when it conducts ...

WASHINGTON / Reuters US bank regulators proposed easing a key capital rule designed to restrict bank leverage, a move that would free up $400 million of capital across the largest US banks. The proposal from the Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency would reduce the “enhanced supplementary leverage ratio” (eSLR) and more closely tie the ...

LONDON / Reuters The Japanese Bankers Association (JBA) and the China Banking Association (CBA) have joined forces to challenge proposed European Union regulations aimed at policing possible market risk posed by foreign lenders doing business in the bloc. In a letter to the European Commission seen by Reuters, the JBA and CBA — which represent hundreds of lenders from both ...