Banking

Bloomberg A further depreciation of the yen won’t be good for Japan’s economy and may prompt a shift in the central bank’s messaging, according to a former Bank of Japan (BOJ) official, speaking after the currency set a fresh low of more than five years. “The yen has already moved a lot compared with last year, so a further weakening ...

  Bloomberg Southeast Asian central bankers are keeping a cautious approach toward monetary tightening, as the fallout from the war in Ukraine stokes risks to global growth and inflation. Bank Negara Malaysia will continue gauging the “appropriate degree of monetary policy accommodation to make sure this economic recovery is much more durable,” Governor Nor Shamsiah Mohd Yunus said in a ...

  Bloomberg JPMorgan Chase & Co has processed funds that were earmarked for interest payments due on dollar bonds issued by the Russian government and sent the money on to Citigroup Inc. as bondholders waited for a second day to receive the $117 million. JPMorgan was the correspondent bank Russia used to send the payment to Citigroup, which is acting ...

  Bloomberg Russia’s central bank granted Sberbank PJSC, the nation’s biggest lender, a license to issue and exchange digital assets. Using Sber’s platform, companies can issue their own digital assets to attract market investments, buy digital assets through Sber’s system, or make other digital assets transactions, the bank said in a statement. “We are just starting our work with digital ...

  Bloomberg Indonesia’s central bank left its policy rate unchanged, seeking to sustain its recovery while keeping a close eye on core inflation and the impacts from the war in Ukraine on the global economy. Bank Indonesia kept the seven-day reverse repurchase rate at 3.5% on Thursday, as predicted by all 29 economists in a Bloomberg survey. The rate has ...

  Bloomberg The UK will examine why access to business finance appears to be a “major barrier” for ethnic minorities, making it easier to spot racism or unconscious bias in bank lending. Boris Johnson’s government will work with lenders to understand the underlying problems after earlier research showed that the design of programs can influence demand from the ethnic minorities. ...

  Bloomberg Mexican regulators need to break up an effective monopoly in the country’s credit card payments network that is benefiting big banks and hobbling startups in Mexico, said a new study commissioned by a group of financial technology firms. While regulators across Latin America have helped financial startups gain ground, Mexico is letting the country’s largest banks set the ...

  Bloomberg Standard Bank Group Ltd., Africa’s biggest lender by assets, plans to raise as much as 300 billion rand ($20 billion) by 2026 to help fund renewable energy projects, even as it remains open to supporting fossil fuels. The Johannesburg-based lender pledged to achieve a net zero carbon emissions target from its own operations by 2040 and from its ...

  Bloomberg Like they did after the 2008 crash, the UK’s two economic policy heavyweights are playing good cop-bad cop. It’s just that this time they’ve swapped roles. In the years following the financial crisis, the Bank of England (BOE) stuck resolutely to easy money while fiscal policy got tough when Chancellor of Exchequer George Osborne imposed swingeing budget cuts. ...

  Bloomberg Brazil’s central bank will likely slow the pace of interest rate increases as it calibrates one of the world’s most aggressive monetary tightening cycles despite a breakneck surge in local fuel prices. Policy makers will raise the benchmark Selic by 100 basis points to 11.75%, according to 38 of 44 economists in a Bloomberg survey. Four of them ...