Banking

Bloomberg The Bank of Japan (BOJ) is seen standing pat on its main policies at next week’s meeting, while tinkering on the margins of its toolkit by extending aid for pandemic-hit businesses as the country’s fight against the virus drags on. Some 89% of 44 economists surveyed by Bloomberg see the BOJ keeping in place its negative interest rate and ...

Bloomberg Japanese banks are in a bind — again. Sitting on record levels of excess cash, lenders are turning to riskier investments that need complex foreign exchange hedges, such as US Treasuries, to make a return on deposits that ballooned during the pandemic. Many will be seeking to avoid past mistakes. The surplus, calculated by subtracting bank loans from deposits, ...

Bloomberg Market watchers haven’t been this bullish on State Bank of India in almost two decades, as they bet on the lender’s improving asset quality to help it weather the pandemic. Among 48 analysts who cover the stock, 47 recommend buy and only one has a hold rating — a ratio of 98% that’s the highest since June 2004, according ...

Bloomberg Hong Kong has started a project to explore issuing a digital currency that is anticipated to last over the next 12 months. “This is essentially a research study similar to what is being undertaken by many other jurisdictions,” the Hong Kong Monetary Authority said on Tuesday. It remains open minded and hopes to offer “initial thoughts” in 12 months, ...

Bloomberg Some investors are cheering the Bank of Japan’s withdrawal from the stock market, even as they brace for more volatility. Japan’s central bank (BOJ) didn’t buy any exchange-traded funds for an entire month of May, the first time since Governor Haruhiko Kuroda kicked off his easing campaign in 2013. That’s prompting some in the market to believe the BOJ ...

Bloomberg The Bank of England (BOE) started a major new stress test of the country’s biggest banks and insurers to judge how resilient they are to climate change. The assessment, delayed last year because of the pandemic, requires HSBC Holdings Plc, Barclays Plc and other lenders to scrutinise the impact of global warming on everything from real estate to corporate ...

Bloomberg The European Central Bank (ECB) will extend its phase of faster bond-buying through the summer to ensure the economic rebound after coronavirus lockdowns morphs into a sustained recovery, according to a Bloomberg survey of economists. The majority expects the ECB to keep purchasing about 20 billion euros ($24.4 billion) worth of debt a week until September before slowing down. ...

Bloomberg Goldman Sachs Group Inc and HSBC Holdings Plc are opening their offices fully in Hong Kong as a fourth wave of infections was contained and the US investment bank said half of its staff in the financial hub are now vaccinated. Both banks told staff that all employees would be permitted to return to their Hong Kong offices, in ...

Bloomberg A big portion of consumer deposits at retail banks could shift to digital currencies if governments start offering them, the Bank of England (BOE) indicated in a discussion paper about the issue. The UK central bank modeled the impact of introducing digital forms of money on the retail banking sector and in one scenario considered what would happen if ...

Bloomberg India’s foreign exchange reserves have by all indications crossed $600 billion, central bank chief Shaktikanta Das said, a huge buffer that will help insulate Asia’s third-largest economy from global spillovers and volatile external flows. Earlier this year, the country’s foreign-exchange reserves briefly surpassed Russia’s to become the world’s fourth-largest, as the Reserve Bank of India continued to hoard dollars ...