Banking

Bloomberg The Bank of England (BOE) could raise interest rates twice by May to curb a surge in inflation, but that largely depends on how high unemployment rises after the end of the government’s furlough program, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch. “Furlough-end remains key,” BofA economist Robert Wood said. “If it goes well, or the BOE feels pressured ...

Bloomberg US Bancorp agreed to buy Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group’s US regional bank for about $8 billion, expanding on the West Coast as consolidation in the finance industry intensifies. The price for MUFG Union Bank NA includes $5.5 billion in cash and about 44 million shares of US Bancorp common stock, according to a statement. The agreement excludes MUFG Union ...

Bloomberg Handelsbanken AB, Sweden’s third-largest bank, plans to distribute a stake worth about $1 billion in investment company Industrivarden AB to shareholders. “As a result of the bank’s good capital situation, the board of directors of Handelsbanken has resolved to convene an extraordinary general meeting and propose an extra dividend,” the company said in a statement. The bank’s capitalisation is ...

Bloomberg Credit Suisse Group AG is considering moving its Asian investment banking operations into its global securities and advisory business as part of a wider overhaul by chairman Antonio Horta-Osorio to turn around the troubled bank. Consolidating the advisory business into the global investment bank would mirror a similar move last year to bring the Asian markets activities into that ...

Bloomberg The European Central Bank (ECB) will discuss boosting its regular asset purchases once the pandemic-era emergency stimulus comes to an end, but any such increase is uncertain, Governing Council member Madis Muller said. While the euro area’s recovery should allow the ECB to end its 1.85 trillion-euro ($2.2 trillion) pandemic bond-buying program in March, officials will discuss how to ...

Bloomberg The Bank of Spain expects inflation to peak in November before easing back below the European Central Bank (ECB) 2% target next year. The central bank raised its forecasts to 2.1% in 2021 and 1.7% in 2022 from a previous 1.9% and 1.2% respectively. The spike in inflation, driven mostly by record high electricity prices, will likely be transitory, ...

Bloomberg Deutsche Bank said trading accelerated again over the past weeks, one of the few large investment banks to give guidance on the quarter after a strong first half of the year. “July started off pretty muted for the markets in general,” Mark Fedorcik, who heads the investment bank, said at a virtual conference hosted by Barclays Plc. “We saw ...

Bloomberg Norway’s central bank is poised to raise its interest rate this week in the first such post-pandemic tightening among nations with the world’s 10 most-traded currencies. Responding to a buoyant economic recovery, Norges Bank will lift its benchmark on Thursday by a quarter-point from zero, according to all but one of the 15 economists surveyed by Bloomberg. That places ...

Bloomberg Indonesia’s central bank left its benchmark interest rate unchanged at a record low as the economy begins to show signs of recovery from the country’s worst coronavirus wave. Bank Indonesia held the seven-day reverse repurchase rate at 3.5% on Tuesday, as expected by all 31 analysts in a Bloomberg survey. The key rate has been at that level since ...

Bloomberg The European Central Bank (ECB) is likely to continue purchasing junk-rated Greek sovereign debt even after the pandemic crisis has passed, according to Governing Council member and Greek central bank chief Yannis Stournaras. “This is not a question of Greece’s ability to service debt, but a question of even transmission of monetary policy,” Stournaras told Politico in an interview. ...