Bloomberg Deutsche Bank AG Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Christian Sewing wants Germany’s largest lender to play an active role in a possible consolidation of Europe’s financial services industry, he told Welt am Sonntag in an interview. The performance of the Frankfurt-based bank has been steadily improving, and that’s why the company isn’t willing to be a junior partner if mergers ...
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ECB closely monitoring strengthening of euro
Bloomberg The European Central Bank (ECB) is closely monitoring the euro’s strengthening against the US dollar, Governing Council member Olli Rehn told Germany’s Boersen-Zeitung. While the ECB doesn’t target the exchange rate, “that does not mean that the appreciation is not important,†as it leads to a loss of competitiveness and affects the outlook for growth and inflation, Rehn, the ...
Read More »Bitcoin breaches $34,000 as rally extends into New Year
Bloomberg Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency, topped $34,000, just weeks after passing another major milestone. The currency gained as much as 7.8% to $34,182.75, before slipping to about $33,970 in Singapore. It advanced almost 50% in December, when it breached $20,000 for the first time. The latest gains top an eye-popping rally for the controversial digital asset in 2020, which ...
Read More »Sweden government explores moving to a digital currency
Bloomberg Sweden’s government will start exploring the feasibility of having the country move to a digital currency, marking another step into the unknown for the world’s most cashless society. Per Bolund, financial markets minister, said a review is expected to be completed by the end of November in 2022. Anna Kinberg Batra, a former chairwoman of the parliament’s finance committee, ...
Read More »Hungary keeps rates unchanged
Bloomberg Hungary left its monetary policy unchanged despite a slowdown in inflation and a rally in the forint, warning of continued risks to global investor sentiment amid a resurgence in coronavirus. The central bank kept the rate offered on required reserves at 0.6% and the overnight deposit rate at minus 0.05%, as forecast by all economists in a Bloomberg survey. ...
Read More »Unicaja to buy rival Liberbank in boost to Spanish deals
Bloomberg Spain’s Unicaja Banco SA agreed to buy rival Liberbank SA in an all-share deal, adding to a flurry of deal-making in the nation’s finance industry. Unicaja will pay 1 new share for every 2.7705 of Liberbank shares, issuing as much as 1.08 billion euros of stock to fund the purchase, according to a statement. Unicaja shareholders will have 59.5% ...
Read More »Goldman leads in M&A advising in 2020 after comeback for deals
Bloomberg 2020 was a year the entire world changed, but one thing held steady in an elite corner of Wall Street: Goldman Sachs Group Inc. ended up on top. Goldman was the world’s top adviser on mergers and acquisitions (M&A) for the fourth consecutive year in 2020, and was the only bank with more than 30% of market share, according to ...
Read More »SNB interventions reach $100 billion
Bloomberg Switzerland’s central bank spent 11 billion francs ($12.5 billion) on interventions in the third quarter, adding to an already-high tally that got the country labelled a currency manipulator by the US. The Swiss National Bank (SNB) acquired foreign currencies worth more than 100 billion francs win the first nine months of the year — the biggest sum since 2012 ...
Read More »Poland to cut near-zero interest rates in 2021
Bloomberg Poland’s central bank is analysing the impact of potential interest-rate cuts that could take place in the first quarter of 2021, Governor Adam Glapinski said. While the current, record-low reference rate of 0.1% is “appropriate and best suits the situation,†the central bank may reduce it further, the Governor said in an excerpt of an interview published on the ...
Read More »China caps bank loans to real estate
Bloomberg China’s regulators will impose caps on banks’ lending to the real estate sector for the first time, in their latest efforts to prevent systematic risks after a series of property curbs in recent years did little to damp buyer enthusiasm. Under the new mechanism, loans to developers will be capped at 40% for the nation’s largest state-owned lenders while ...
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