Banking

Bloomberg JPMorgan Chase & Co. agreed to fund 500 million pounds ($686 million) in UK home loans originated by London-based fintech LendInvest Ltd. The US bank will use LendInvest to finance properties that will be leased, known as buy-to-let loans, according to a statement. LendInvest has loaned more than 3.5 billion pounds online since its inception about a decade ago, ...

Bloomberg The European Central Bank (ECB) is urging lenders to do a better job of gauging the risks they face from a potential spike in defaults as the pandemic increasingly hits companies and consumers. The worsening economy has slowed banks’ efforts to reduce existing bad debts and “there is also an embedded level of distress in loan books that is ...

Bloomberg Asian and European investors are pouring money into dollar corporate bonds, which have grown more enticing as longer-term US yields have risen and hedging costs have fallen. A European investor can earn about 1.03% on an average US high-grade corporate bond after hedging, or around 0.8 percentage point above euro-denominated counterparts, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That’s one ...

Bloomberg More than one-third of the 89 billion pounds ($122 billion) of lending handed out by the UK government to help businesses through the pandemic will never be repaid, according to the National Audit Office. The report, based on government estimates, says 31 billion pounds ($42.51 billion) will need to be written off, highlighting the dire position of many firms ...

Bloomberg The Bank of England (BOE) probably won’t cut interest rates below zero in the foreseeable future even as the growth outlook deteriorates. Just one of 14 economists surveyed by Bloomberg anticipate a move to sub-zero rates for the first time in the BOE’s three-century history. The central bank is due to publish the results of a consultation about how ...

Bloomberg China’s central bank is winning the battle against leverage, yanking billions of funds from the financial system and crushing a popular trade in the bond market. The People’s Bank of China drained a net 150 billion yuan ($23 billion) of funds using open-market operations, the largest such amount since October. That adds to its 178 billion yuan withdrawal from ...

Bloomberg Wells Fargo & Co. cut Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Charlie Scharf’s compensation about 12% for 2020, a year in which shares tumbled and the company slashed its dividend and reported its first quarterly loss since 2008. The board paid Scharf $20.3 million for 2020, his first full year atop Wells Fargo, down from $23 million for 2019. The San Francisco-based ...

Bloomberg Ghana banks are extending relief measures to cushion clients from fallout of pandemic as a resurgence in the number of infections threatens an economic recovery. Lenders are retaining measures such as reduced borrowing costs, restructured credit facilities and repayment holidays to customers into 2021 to “ensure that the wheels of the economy continue grinding,” John Awuah, chief executive officer ...

Bloomberg UBS Group AG plans to buy back as much as 4 billion francs ($4.5 billion) of shares over the next three years, bolstering shareholder returns after income from managing client assets and investment banking propelled gains at the world’s largest wealth manager. The lender is doubling the size of a previous repurchase program and said it expects to buy ...

Bloomberg African Bank Holdings Ltd. reported a full-year loss a day after announcing the unexpected resignation of Basani Maluleke, the only Black women to lead one of South Africa’s top banks. The unsecured lender swung to a 560 million-rand ($37 million) loss in the 12 months through September, compared with a year-earlier profit of 267 million rand, Johannesburg-based African Bank ...