Banking

BLOOMBERG The European Central Bank (ECB) has to continue to raise borrowing costs, according to Governing Council member Klaas Knot, conceding that a slower pace of tightening could be warranted. “We are certainly not done with interest-rate hikes,” the Dutch central bank chief told the NRC newspaper in an interview. “Core inflation in the euro zone is now almost 6%, ...

BLOOMBERG  New Bank of Japan (BOJ) Governor Kazuo Ueda struck a dovish tone once again by highlighting the risk of inflation slowing below the central bank’s target. Comparing the risk of inflation overshooting and falling below 2%, “it’s appropriate to conduct monetary policy by focusing on the latter risk” considering economic conditions, Ueda told reporters in Washington. Coming three days ...

BLOOMBERG  HSBC Holdings Plc plans to recruit about 30 bankers to service India’s ultra-rich through its private bank that the lender will launch in the country in the next few months, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The bank is seeking to fill the roles internally from staff in the country, as well as to hire wealth managers ...

BLOOMBERG  British banks expect to put the squeeze on the mortgage market in the coming months after signs emerged of business and household loan defaults picking up. The Bank of England’s (BOE) quarterly credit conditions survey showed that the availability of home loans will be curtailed in the second quarter (Q2). Lenders said that default rates on mortgages, unsecured credit ...

BLOOMBERG The largest US banks are about to reveal how they fared as customer deposits came under siege in the first quarter. Deposits at JPMorgan Chase & Co, Wells Fargo & Co and Bank of America Corp are expected to have tumbled $521 billion from a year earlier, the biggest drop in a decade, according to analysts’ estimates. The decline ...

BLOOMBERG The Bank of Korea (BOK) kept its benchmark interest rate unchanged and said it intends to keep policy restrictive to combat inflation even with the economy set to slow more than previously expected this year. The central bank held its seven-day repurchase rate at 3.5%, as forecast by economists. Unlike in February, the latest decision was unanimous, an outcome ...

BLOOMBERG Toronto-Dominion (TD) Bank may seek a lower price for First Horizon Corp, but it still has an incentive to close the deal, according to a Canadian asset manager who specialises in financial stocks. “The reasons they wanted to buy in the first place haven’t gone away. Tennessee and Florida and the Carolinas are still great banking markets,” Robert Wessel, managing ...

BLOOMBERG  Bitcoin climbed above $30,000 for the first time since June 2022, bolstered by bets on easier monetary policies that have made cryptocurrencies standout performers this year. Bitcoin is now up 82% since December 31, 2022, handily beating the Nasdaq 100 tech index’s 19% gain. Gold, another investor favourite this year, has climbed 9.6%. Crypto’s rapid ascent has seen Bitcoin ...

BLOOMBERG  The Bank of Korea (BOK) kept its benchmark interest rate unchanged and said it intends to keep policy restrictive to combat inflation even with the economy set to slow more than previously expected this year. The central bank held its seven-day repurchase rate at 3.5%, as forecast by economists. Unlike in February, the latest decision was unanimous, an outcome ...

BLOOMBERG Some smaller Chinese lenders cut interest rates for time deposits over the weekend, following a similar move by their larger rivals last year, after several lending rate reductions by policy makers started to squeeze their margins. Rural lenders in provinces including Henan and Hubei lowered deposit rates by as much as 45 basis points on some tenors, according to ...