Banking

  Bloomberg Nigerian lenders cut the dollar spending limits on local currency cards to free more resources to fund imports after the central bank signaled it will stop foreign-exchange sales to banks. United Bank for Africa Plc stopped the use of naira card to withdraw dollars from automated teller machines outside the country or make international payments at point of ...

  Bloomberg Telecom giants Orange SA and Masmovil Ibercom SA are seeking to line up a debt package of up to 6 billion euros ($6.6 billion) to back a joint venture, creating one of the largest leveraged debt financings in the region, people familiar with the matter said. Orange and Masmovil entered into exclusive negotiations on March 8 to combine ...

Bloomberg JPMorgan Chase & Co joined Goldman Sachs Group Inc in pulling back from Russia in response to the country’s invasion of Ukraine last month. JPMorgan, the biggest US bank, is currently engaging in limited activities in the country, the New York-based company said in a statement. Goldman Sachs said it plans to close its operations there. The finance-industry titans ...

  Bloomberg New Zealand banks are calling on the Reserve Bank to delay implementation of new mortgage lending restrictions such as debt-to-income ratios as the housing market cools. Existing restrictions and rising interest rates are already slowing home-lending growth, and banks are concerned the introduction of further limits could have “unintended consequences,” the New Zealand Bankers Association said in a ...

  Bloomberg Citigroup Inc, in the midst of overhauling its businesses in Russia when the country went to war, has seen efforts to sell a consumer-banking unit there stall and is helping some employees transfer abroad. The moves show how Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has quickly made the future less certain for many of Citigroup’s roughly 3,000 workers in ...

  Bloomberg UniCredit SpA signaled a hit of about 200 basis points to its capital buffers in an “extreme scenario” in which its Russian banking assets are wiped out, joining European lenders detailing the potential fallout from the financial turmoil after the Ukraine invasion. The Milan-based bank doesn’t consider an extreme scenario — the entirety of its exposure to the ...

  Bloomberg Countries around the globe face a challenge in replacing supply of commodities from Russia and Ukraine that has been cut off by the war and should remove restraints to production, according to the World Bank chief. Nations could look at easing constraints such as the Jones Act in the US—which requires that ships moving between ports be built ...

  Bloomberg A group of banks led by UniCredit SpA is considering options including a state-backed guarantee for a 850 million euros bridge-loan for troubled Italian engineering firm Saipem SpA, according to people familiar with the matter. The team of banks, which includes Intesa Sanpaolo SpA, started discussing the option in a confidential meeting, the people said, asking not to ...

Bloomberg The European Central Bank is concerned that lenders’ balance sheets could suffer a series of hits after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine plunged the global economy and markets into turmoil. The regulator has told banks to assess whether they need to set aside money for potential losses not just on loans to Russian firms, but also on lending to companies ...

  Bloomberg Royal Bank of Canada, Shopify Inc. and Bullfrog Power Inc. have agreed to buy a combined 90,000 megawatt-hours of energy a year from a Berkshire Hathaway Inc. wind farm in Canada. The firms are purchasing the power from Berkshire Hathaway Energy Canada’s 130-megawatt Rattlesnake Ridge Wind Power Project in southeast Alberta, according to a release Wednesday. The project, ...