Banking

  Bloomberg Standard Chartered Plc (StanChart) will hand back $750 million through a share buyback despite missing estimates, as the bank looks to cost cuts and higher interest rates to boost returns. Adjusted pretax profits for 2021 rose 55% to $3.9 billion, missing a company-compiled estimate of $4.3 billion, dragged down by a $300 million writedown on its investment in ...

  Bloomberg Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) shareholders will vote on whether the bank should tighten its standards for sustainable finance, action inspired by a 2021 pipeline financing deal that was criticised for green-washing and general concern over lax standards for so-called sustainability-linked debt. Investors for Paris Compliance, a shareholder advocacy group set up last year to hold Canadian companies ...

  Bloomberg Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA may seek a capital injection of about $4 billion, in a reassessment of the cost to stabilise the state-owned lender. The amount, which could be a billion euros more than estimated in December, is now seen by the treasury as necessary to comply with the bank-specific capital regulations set by the ...

  Bloomberg US authorities conducting a criminal probe into how Morgan Stanley executives handle block trades are examining recordings of phone calls between the bank and outside fund managers, according to people with knowledge of the inquiry. The recordings involve conversations between Pawan Passi, one of Morgan Stanley’s top equities executives in block trades, and investing clients, the people said, ...

  Bloomberg Uruguay’s central bank lifted its benchmark interest rate for a fifth consecutive meeting amid surging consumer prices and above-target inflation expectations. Policy makers boosted the key rate to 7.25% from 6.5%, their second consecutive increase of 75 basis points. “The international outlook can be characterised as most inflationary in past decades,” central bankers wrote in a statement. They ...

  Bloomberg Citigroup Inc is moving half a dozen senior equities staff from Hong Kong to Singapore and other markets, in one of the biggest signs yet the Chinese territory’s steadfast zero-Covid approach is prompting global banks to shift key staff out of the Asian financial hub. Lee McQueen, head of pan Asia equity blocks, is among managing directors relocating ...

  Bloomberg Bank of Korea (BOK) officials past and present, presidential advisers and global representatives are among potential successors to central bank Governor Lee Ju-yeol, whose impending departure is fuelling speculation over a replacement at a time of elevated inflation. Lee’s successor will inherit rapidly normalising monetary policy after two years of extraordinary stimulus to prop up a pandemic-hit economy. ...

  Bloomberg Citigroup Inc awarded Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Jane Fraser $22.5 million for her work in 2021 after she assumed the top job in February and helped guide the bank through regulatory hurdles. Fraser, 54, was granted stock awards totalling about $14.82 million, a cash bonus of $6.35 million and a $1.33 million salary, the New York-based bank said ...

  Bloomberg Singapore authorities are urging banks to impose stronger security measures to prevent more phishing scams after one of the city-state’s biggest lenders was hit by a serious case of fraud. Banks need to expand their fraud surveillance capabilities, Lawrence Wong, the finance minister and deputy chairman of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), said in parliament on Tuesday. ...

  Bloomberg Bankers based in Italy are meeting in the northern town of Parma at the Assiom Forex conference as the banking industry looks at possible consolidation amid rising profits and a resurgent economy after the pandemic. Italian lenders have cleaned up their books, curbed risks and reduced costs in last few years. Now, they are set to benefit from ...