Banking

  Bloomberg Australia’s central bank has signalled it’ll remain at the dovish end of the global policy spectrum even as it ended one of its crisis-era tools. The Aussie dollar and bond yields whipsawed as markets that had bet on accelerated interest-rate tightening digested Governor Philip Lowe’s pledge to remain patient in assessing inflation. Lowe, who announced a scrapping of ...

  Bloomberg Central banks in some of Africa’s biggest economies will likely look past high inflation and US policy tightening and hold interest rates over the coming weeks to shore up their recoveries from the Covid-19 stasis. Since monetary policy makers on the continent last met, US consumer prices soared to a near four-decade high, setting the stage for the ...

  Bloomberg India’s central bank has not fallen behind the curve, having maintained an easy monetary policy stance even as other economies across the world have started tightening, a top official said. “India held its ground and is among a few countries that have retained an accommodative monetary policy, despite some views that we have fallen behind the curve,” Reserve ...

  Bloomberg In the eyes of Visa Inc and Mastercard Inc., consumers are learning to live with the coronavirus pandemic. Both networks said that spending on their cards surged to a record in the final three months of last year, even as the highly contagious Omicron variant disrupted travel and sparked fresh rounds of lockdowns. Spending on Visa’s network soared ...

  Bloomberg The Bank of Japan (BOJ) should keep its inflation-targeting stimulus rolling and consider shortening the maturity of its yield target to make its easing framework more sustainable, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said, in comments that contrast with global moves to tighten policy. Given that Japan’s underlying inflation momentum remains weak at around 0.5% and is not currently ...

  Bloomberg UniCredit SpA withdrew from a possible deal to take over Russian lender Otkritie Bank FC, with Chief Executive Officer Andrea Orcel signalling that the military build-up in the region was a factor in the decision. “Given the geopolitical environment we decided to withdraw from the data room,” Orcel said in a media call. “The combined bank would have ...

  Bloomberg Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd.’s profit rises 15% in the third quarter on a cut in provisioning and higher net interest earnings aided by an easing of the pandemic. Net income stood at 21.3 billion rupees ($284 million) in quarter ended December compared with 18.5 billion rupees a year ago. That beat an average estimate of 20.7 billion rupees ...

  Bloomberg DBS Group Holdings Ltd. agreed to buy Citigroup Inc.’s consumer banking assets in Taiwan, as Southeast Asia’s largest lender pushes ahead with plans to boost its regional presence. The Singapore bank will pay cash for Citi Consumer Taiwan’s net assets plus a premium of S$956 million ($707 million), which will be determined at the close of the deal ...

  Bloomberg American Express Co is putting the pandemic behind it, boosting forecasts for revenue and profit after spending on its cards surged to a record. Revenue will climb as much as 20% this year while earnings could reach $9.25 to $9.65 a share, the company said in a statement. AmEx has long said 2022 would be the year it ...

  Bloomberg Deutsche Bank AG plans to further increase its dividend after resuming payouts following a huge restructuring that saw it exit equities trading and cut thousands of jobs. The decision to pay out 700 million euros ($790 million) through buybacks and dividends is an “important first step” in the bank’s commitment to pay out 5 billion euros ($5.60 billion) ...