Bloomberg Barclays Plc acquired a $3.8 billion portfolio of credit cards from retailer Gap Inc., giving it a new route to American consumers. The British bank will issue co-branded and private label credit cards in the US to Gap customers from the second quarter next year, Barclays said in a statement. While Chief Executive Officer Jes Staley has made the ...
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BlackRock faces key test in $15trn China asset market
Bloomberg BlackRock Inc is gearing up for the first test of Chinese investor appetite for its own mutual fund products, more than 15 years after entering the world’s most promising wealth market. The company’s new China unit is launching its debut product on August 30, just two months after winning regulatory approval to become the nation’s first wholly foreign-owned mutual ...
Read More »PBOC vows to stabilise money growth, boost credit support
Bloomberg China’s central bank chief vowed to stabilise the supply of credit and boost the amount of money supporting smaller businesses and the real economy, after both credit and economic growth slowed in July. The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) will keep monetary policy stable with a good cross-cyclical design and will support high-quality economic expansion with “appropriate money growth,†...
Read More »Citi sued for profiting from European credit fund’s demise as Covid struck
Bloomberg Citigroup Inc is facing a lawsuit for pulling support from a European credit fund as the Covid-19 pandemic roiled the markets, then giving its own traders a potential profit at the fund’s expense. The New York-based bank was sued by Ver Capital Partners in London for forcing the fund to default on a 224 million-euro ($263 million) loan in ...
Read More »RBNZ: Rate hike delayed due to communication difficulties
Bloomberg New Zealand’s central bank decided not to raise interest rates last week because of communication challenges, not economic risks, Assistant Governor Christian Hawkesby said. It would have been difficult to explain an increase in the official cash rate on the same day the country entered a lockdown to combat a Covid-19 outbreak, Hawkesby told Bloomberg in a telephone interview ...
Read More »Goldman Sachs increases pay for junior employees
Bloomberg Goldman Sachs Group Inc is boosting the pay of junior staff in its sales, trading, research and asset management divisions as the wave of pay rises spreads beyond investment banking, according to Financial News. Goldman Sachs will pay starting salaries of $110,000 in these units, up from $85,000, while second years will receive $125,000, Financial News reported, citing people ...
Read More »Hungary set to raise rates as tightening cycle hits its stride
Bloomberg Hungary will probably raise interest rates for the third time in as many months as policy makers continue their campaign to stem one of the European Union’s highest inflation rates. The central bank is poised to increase benchmark rate by 30 basis points to 1.5%, matching the pace of hikes in June and July, according to all but one ...
Read More »China opportunities ‘too big to ignore’: HSBC chairman
Bloomberg HSBC Holdings Plc Chairman Mark Tucker, speaking in Hong Kong after passing through the city’s rigid three-week quarantine, said the opportunities in China are “too big to ignore†even as geopolitical tensions escalate. “We’re moving to a new status quo in Sino-US relations,†Tucker said in a video obtained by Bloomberg News of a discussion last week at a ...
Read More »Goldman Sachs, BofA see lost decades for emerging markets
Bloomberg Elevated commodity prices and expectations for earnings growth are igniting bullish bets on emerging-market equities after more than a decade of underperformance that left them approaching a 20-year low against developed-nation stocks. Goldman Sachs Group, Bank of America Corp (BofA) and Lazard Asset Management expect a boost for developing equities as investors capitalise on cheap valuations once vaccine rollouts ...
Read More »China’s digital yuan gives banks an edge in payments: Moody’s
Bloomberg China’s digital yuan will help banks become more competitive in the payments sector after steadily losing out to popular technology platforms over the years, according to Moody’s Investors Service. “We expect adoption of e-CNY to help reinforce banks’ position in the payments system because it will enhance their data collection ability and broaden their user bases,†analysts led by ...
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