Banking

Bloomberg A European Central Bank (ECB) push to make it easier for the region’s chronically unprofitable banks to merge is facing opposition from some national regulators, with one top official warning it could backfire and damage the integration of the financial system. Proposals by ECB supervisory board chair Andrea Enria to give banks more freedom to source funds in one ...

Bloomberg Sheila Patel, chairman of Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s asset-management unit, is leaving the $1.8 trillion division after almost two decades at the firm. Patel, 51, is among the company’s most senior women and shepherded some of Goldman’s highest-profile relationships with investors around the world. She will step down from the partnership and become an advisory director in the new ...

Bloomberg Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is leading a $65 million financing in Echelon Fitness, giving the bank and another investor a controlling stake in a maker of exercise machines as more people work out at home amid the pandemic. The Chattanooga, Tennessee-based company competes with Peloton Interactive Inc., Lululemon Athletica Inc.’s Mirror, Tonal, Tempo, Icon’s NordicTrack, Hydrow and other connected ...

Bloomberg Wells Fargo & Co. agreed to sell its $10 billion private student loan book to a group including Apollo Global Management Inc. and Blackstone Group Inc., according to reports. Wells Fargo said in a statement that it had agreed to the sale, without identifying the investors or disclosing terms. Apollo and Blackstone were the purchasers, the people said, asking ...

Bloomberg Poland’s central bank moved to weaken the zloty for the first time in a decade, delivering on a warning that it won’t tolerate a stronger currency as the economy tries to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic. Sales by the bank helped push the zloty down by as much as 1.7% against the euro in low-volume trading, according to two ...

Bloomberg It’s been a tough year by all accounts. But for Bitcoin, 2020 has been a marvelous time. The cryptocurrency almost quadrupled, surpassing $20,000 for the first time as it notched record after record. The diehards cheered it as an inflation hedge in an era of unprecedented central bank largesse. Wall Street veterans from Paul Tudor Jones to Stanley Druckenmiller ...

Bloomberg Credit Suisse Group AG signalled that business continued a mixed performance in the fourth quarter and warned that reaching a profit target next year will depend on the impact of the pandemic. The investment bank “continues to perform well,” with revenue higher than in last year’s fourth quarter, Credit Suisse said in a statement, without providing more details. In ...

Bloomberg Australia’s prudential regulator has abolished its cap on bank dividend payments as the economic recovery takes hold, though urged lenders to ensure payouts are sustainable. From the start of 2021, banks will no longer be held to a minimum level of earnings retention, the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority said in a statement. In April, it had recommended lenders defer ...

Bloomberg If three’s a trend, then US regional bank tie-ups are in the middle of one. Huntington Bancshares Inc.’s $6 billion purchase of TCF Financial Corp., announced, marks the third multibillion-dollar regional bank deal in as many months, and industry executives say more mergers and acquisitions are likely. “Covid put the M&A market into a deep freeze, and we are ...

Bloomberg Australia’s central bank has put together a gauge of “news sentiment” to measure the balance of negative and positive words used in journalists’ articles on the economy in order to help track perceptions. The index “complements other timely survey-based sentiment indicators in its ability to ‘nowcast’ the economy,” Reserve Bank of Australia economists Kim Nguyen and Gianni La Cava ...