Banking

Bloomberg Zambia’s central bank in a surprise move raised its benchmark interest rate for the second time this year to try contain inflation that’s still nearly triple the targeted rate. The monetary policy committee lifted the gauge to 9% from 8.5%, Governor Denny Kalyalya told reporters. It was Kalyalya’s first rate decision since being reappointed to the post in September. ...

Bloomberg Bank of America Corp (BofA) strategists are bearish on markets next year and urged investors to focus on preserving cash as faster inflation and higher interest rates upend the trajectory of global asset prices. In a note to clients, strategists led by Michael Hartnett listed macro trade recommendations, including long positions on volatility gauges, oil, energy, the US dollar, ...

Bloomberg Investors looking for ESG strategies have been handed a new group of indexes promising to focus on biodiversity by excluding companies that are found to pose a threat to nature. The Euronext ESG Biodiversity Screened Index series by HSBC Holdings, developed the product together with Euronext NV and Iceberg Data Lab SAS. The idea is to bring liquidity to ...

Bloomberg Atom Bank has moved to a four-day working week, one of the most dramatic flexible working policies introduced by a finance firm since the pandemic upended office norms. The UK fintech, which has 430 employees, moved to a four-day week, the digital lender said in a statement. Contractual working hours will be reduced by 3.5 hours to 34 hours ...

Bloomberg Australia’s central bank will closely monitor risk premiums to judge whether asset prices appear “sensibly valued,” especially at a time of record low interest rates, said Marion Kohler, head of the domestic markets department. “Asset prices increase when risk-free rates are low, and this is part of the monetary transmission mechanism,” Kohler said in the text of a speech. ...

Bloomberg DBS Group Holdings Ltd is facing a second day of outages in its online banking services, marking one of the worst digital disruptions for Southeast Asia’s biggest lender in a decade. The disruptions in DBS’s digital services — an area where the Singapore-based bank has invested in heavily — started early Tuesday and resurfaced on Wednesday. The problems stemmed ...

Bloomberg New Zealand’s central bank raised interest rates for the second time in two months and signalled it will need to tighten policy more quickly than previously expected to contain the inflation. The Reserve Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee lifted the official cash rate by a quarter percentage point to 0.75% on Wednesday, as expected by most economists. New forecasts published ...

Bloomberg The dollar surged past a key level against the yen for the first time since 2017, as the renomination of Jerome Powell as Federal Reserve chair fuelled bets that the US might tighten policy more quickly. The dollar-yen climbed as much as 0.2% to 115.14 — a Japanese market holiday — surpassing the psychologically important 115 level. Treasury yields ...

Bloomberg Citigroup Inc is looking to hire 100 people as part of a new push into digital assets inside its institutional business, according to a person familiar with the matter. As part of the effort, the firm tapped Puneet Singhvi to be its new head of digital assets inside the institutional-clients group, according to a memo to staff seen by ...

Bloomberg An organisation formed by key participants in China’s currency market urged banks to limit speculative foreign-exchange trading after the yuan climbed to a six-year high versus peers. The China Foreign Exchange Committee (CFEC) — founded under guidance from the central bank — encouraged lenders to be risk-neutral when trading foreign exchange for themselves and for clients, according to people ...