AFP The International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned on Tuesday that central banks are struggling to beat back deflationary forces and that governments need to spend to help them succeed. In a new assessment of global economic conditions, the IMF said many countries worldwide are battling disinflation — low and slowing inflation — due to weak global economic growth. If central ...

  Bloomberg Citigroup Inc., the largest foreign lender in India by assets, plans to shut about 10 percent of its branches in the nation as more customers switch to the firm’s digital platforms to conduct their banking transactions, people familiar with the matter said. The lender, which has 44 branches nationwide, may close about five outlets to focus on larger ...

  Bloomberg Barclays Plc will reduce office space at its loss-making Japanese securities unit to trim expenses after cutting jobs earlier this year. The UK bank, which rents two floors of the Mori Tower in Tokyo’s Roppongi Hills office complex, will vacate about half of the 31st floor as early as this year while keeping its space on the 32nd, ...

  Bloomberg American Express Co. can prohibit merchants from steering customers to credit cards with lower transaction fees, a federal appeals court ruled in a blow to businesses trying to reduce annual card fees that run around $50 billion. The decision by the appeals court in Manhattan is the most definitive ruling on AmEx’s relationship with merchants. A federal judge ...

  Grangemouth / AFP A tanker carrying the first shipment of shale gas from the United States arrived on Tuesday in Britain, where there are currently no commercial fracking operations because of fierce public opposition. The ship arrived at Grangemouth, a sprawling energy complex on the River Forth near Edinburgh in Scotland, where the North Sea offshore oil and gas ...

  Bloomberg Russian wheat exports haven’t lived up to expectations so far this season as falling prices made some growers reluctant to sell grain to traders amid a halt in purchases by Egypt, the world’s largest buyer. Outbound shipments in the three months since the campaign started in July will probably amount to 9 million metric tons, down 8 percent ...

  Bloomberg Argentina is about to find itself in yet another legal dispute with disgruntled creditors. A group of European investors who own defaulted Argentine debt plan to sue the country in Germany as soon as next month after they were excluded from a settlement offer, said Jakob Heichele, a Munich-based attorney at a law firm that bears his name ...

  Bloomberg London’s housing market faces severe price declines if the U.K.’s vote to leave the European Union triggers an extended period of economic weakness, according to UBS Group AG. A severe recession could halt the “unsustainable price growth fueled by ample liquidity and tight supply,” UBS said in a report accompanying its Global Real Estate Bubble Index. London is ...

  London / AFP Soft drinks giant A.G. Barr, maker of Scotland’s famous Irn-Bru fizzy drink, slammed the British government Tuesday over its proposed sugar tax against obesity, as it reported falling sales. Barr — whose brands include carbonated drink Tizer and Rubicon juices — said there had been a move towards sugar-free drinks in the face of “negative media ...

  Berlin / AFP German data protection authorities on Tuesday said they had blocked Facebook from collecting subscriber data from its subsidiary WhatsApp, citing privacy concerns. Facebook and WhatsApp promised in the wake of the Silicon Valley giant’s 2014 acquisition of the messaging app that they would not share data, Hamburg’s Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information Johannes ...