Banking

  Bloomberg China’s central bank has fuelled expectation it will ease monetary policy early this year with its vow to take proactive action to stabilise growth in 2022. A growing number of economists are predicting the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) will cut banks’ required reserves as well as policy interest rates in the first quarter, as fresh pandemic outbreaks ...

  Bloomberg Argentina raised its benchmark interest rate for the first time in over a year as it faces calls from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to tighten its monetary policy. The central bank lifted the key Leliq rate to 40% from 38%, the level it had stood for over a year even with annual inflation running at around 50%. ...

  Bloomberg HSBC Holdings Plc’s private bank raised a record of about $3.2 billion for alternative investments from its clients globally in 2021, a jump of nearly 40% from the previous year, as the wealthy look to escape volatility and diversify their portfolios. Clients in Asia, where HSBC is targeting wealth management as a growth engine, added $1.9 billion for ...

  Bloomberg The Canadian dollar is closing out 2021 as the only major developed-market currency to advance against the dollar, and a hawkish central bank in Ottawa should support the loonie further in 2022. Markets expect the Bank of Canada (BOC) to be one of the G-10’s most aggressive monetary authorities in tightening policy next year. Traders are currently pricing ...

  Bloomberg Credit Suisse Group AG won a court order permitting it to seek documents from SoftBank Group Corp as part of a lawsuit the Zurich-based bank has said it plans to file in England stemming from the collapse of Greensill Capital. A US Magistrate judge in San Francisco granted Credit Suisse’s request to serve a subpoena on SB Investment ...

  Bloomberg Peru raised interest rates for a sixth straight month as inflationary pressure mounts amid the economy’s strong rebound from the pandemic. The central bank increased its policy rate by half a percentage point to 3% in line with the forecasts of five of seven analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. Two economists had expected a bigger increase, to 3.25%. “With ...

  Bloomberg Bank of Korea (BOK) Governor Lee Ju-yeol said omicron is the biggest threat to the economy’s recovery, sounding a cautious note ahead of a policy meeting later this month. The threat posed by the virus variant comes on top of other external risks including rising global inflationary pressure, policy normalisation by major economies and a possible economic slowdown ...

  Bloomberg Bitcoin will continue to take market share from gold as part of broader adoption of digital assets, making the often touted price prediction of a $100,000 by advocates a possibility, according to Goldman Sachs Group. Goldman estimates that Bitcoin’s float-adjusted market capitalisation is just under $700 billion. That accounts for 20% share of the “store of value” market ...

  Bloomberg Standard Chartered Plc will start working in split teams again in Hong Kong as the spread of the omicron variant threatens a fifth wave of infections in the Asian financial hub. In a memo to staff, the bank said it will resume a “hard-split A/B team arrangement” for “critical functions” to ensure business continuity. It urged employees to ...

  Bloomberg The Bank of Japan (BOJ) is taking a stealthier approach than its peers to winding back pandemic stimulus without rattling the markets. As the BOJ, Federal Reserve and others convene meetings this week, the Japanese are, on some fronts, already ahead of the pack after sharply cutting back purchases of exchange traded funds and trimming buying of corporate ...