Banking

BLOOMBERG Chinese banks followed the central bank by lowering their benchmark lending rates, although a relatively modest reduction to the mortgage reference rate disappointed investors. The one-year and five-year loan prime rates were reduced by 10 basis points each, according to a statement by the People’s Bank of China (PBOC). While that was in line with the reduction in the ...

BLOOMBERG Jerome Powell will be in the Capitol Hill spotlight a week after the Federal Reserve paused its most aggressive tightening campaign in decades, with investors watching for clues on whether central bankers are indeed leaning toward further interest-rate hikes. The Fed chair will deliver the central bank’s semi-annual monetary policy report to the House on Wednesday and the Senate ...

BLOOMBERG The bull-market rally in US stocks is about to run out of steam, according to Citigroup. Strategists at the bank led by Scott Chronert reiterated their call for the S&P 500 Index to tumble to 4,000 by year-end, and initiated a new target of 4,400 by mid-2024, or just below June 16’s 4,410 close. A lack of concrete earnings ...

BLOOMBERG Customers Bancorp Inc purchased $631 million of loans that belonged to Signature Bank, the latest example of a financial firm snapping up at a steep discount assets associated with a failed US lender. The purchase from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp (FDIC) was at 85% of the portfolio’s book value, the West Reading, Pennsylvania-based bank said in a statement. ...

BLOOMBERG Nationwide Building Society and Atom Bank Plc announced increases in mortgage rates, joining a flurry of UK lenders who are raising prices in response to inflation. Nationwide said in an email that it would raise fixed rates by as much as 0.7%, while Atom Bank announced increases from 0.25% to 0.6%  on certain products due that same day. “With ...

BLOOMBERG Bangladesh’s central bank raised interest rates and said it will allow the currency to float freely, pledging to keep monetary policy tight to rein in inflation at a decade high. The repurchase agreement rate will increase 50 basis points to 6.5%, Governor Abdur Rouf Talukder said at a briefing in Dhaka. The reverse repo rate was renamed the standing ...

BLOOMBERG  The European Central Bank (ECB) is about to test the resilience of the continent’s banking industry by making lenders repay about half a trillion euros in cheap pandemic-era loans — in one go. While the €4 trillion or so of excess liquidity sloshing around the financial system should limit the overall impact of the giant repayment, individual firms and ...

BLOOMBERG  UBS Group AG plans to retain a few hundred Credit Suisse private bankers in the Asia Pacific region, bringing its total to more than 1,200 in one of the few areas spared from deep cuts, according to people familiar with the matter. The move is being driven by global wealth chief Iqbal Khan, who is betting Asia will continue ...

BLOOMBERG  China’s central bank surprised most economists and market participants by cutting a short-term policy interest rate, a sign that officials are increasingly concerned about faltering growth and are stepping up stimulus to boost the recovery. The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) lowered the seven-day reverse repurchase rate by 10 basis points to 1.9% on Tuesday, the first reduction in ...

BLOOMBERG  India’s disinflation process is “likely to be slow and protracted” and the central bank may meet its 4% target only in the medium term, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Shaktikanta Das said on Tuesday. “The cumulative impact of our monetary policy actions over the last one year is still unfolding and yet to materialise fully,” Governor Das said ...