Banking

Riksbank revealing grim view of latest Covid trend

Bloomberg The Riksbank governor, Stefan Ingves, fears the economic outlook is deteriorating amid signs the coronavirus pandemic is tightening its grip across Europe, and ensnaring Sweden again too. “If you look at our forecasts, it will take a few years before GDP is back” at pre-crisis levels, Ingves said in an interview in Stockholm. “And those forecasts were done before ...

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Spare cash spurs record demand for debt in Europe

Bloomberg There’s so much cash in Europe there are just not enough bonds to go around. The amount of spare liquidity in the euro-area economy hit an all-time high of 3.2 trillion euros ($3.8 trillion) this month and plenty of that is chasing any new debt issue. This was seen in the record 233 billion euros of orders for the ...

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MUFG rules out more cuts at Asia brokerage

Bloomberg Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc. is ruling out further job cuts at its brokerage business in Asia after a lengthy overhaul, even as global banks trim headcount during the pandemic. “We are done with it — it’s over,” Saburo Araki, chief executive officer of Mitsubishi UFJ Securities Holdings Co., said in an interview. “It must have been painful for ...

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BOJ mulls changing inflation forecasts over travel program

Bloomberg The Bank of Japan (BOJ) is likely to consider changing its inflation forecasts to reflect the short-term impact on prices of a government travel campaign at its policy meeting next week, according to people familiar with the matter. The central bank will probably discuss cutting its price projection for the year ending in March to account for the downward ...

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Swiss lender UBS lines up $1.5b for buybacks

Bloomberg UBS Group AG posted better-than-expected third-quarter profit and set aside $1.5 billion for share buybacks next year as Chief Executive Officer Sergio Ermotti prepares to hand over to Ralph Hamers. The Zurich-based wealth manager — the world’s largest — followed US banks in reporting earnings that benefited from increased market volatility and higher transaction-based income. It also unexpectedly saw ...

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Thai central bank chief signals support amid uneven recovery

Bloomberg Bank of Thailand’s new governor said he’s looking into new measures to boost the economy as it faces a long and uneven road to recovery from the coronavirus pandemic. The policy response to the economic crisis should be long term, factoring in challenges likely to arise over the next two years, Governor Sethaput Suthiwart-Narueput told reporters at his first ...

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RBA says policy easing gaining more traction

Bloomberg Australia’s central bank (RBA) said further policy easing is likely to “gain more traction” as restrictions are lifted across the economy and agreed the governor would flag the shift to targeting actual over forecast inflation. “As the economy opens up, members considered it reasonable to expect that further monetary easing would gain more traction than had been the case ...

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ECB urged not to waste time in making bond buying greener

Bloomberg Environmental activists and economists claim there’s a way for the European Central Bank (ECB) to account for climate risks in its stimulus programs without the time-consuming preparatory work officials often say is needed. Just last week, ECB President Christine Lagarde said her institution must question whether “market neutrality” is appropriate in light of environmental risks. As far as researchers ...

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Goldman sends some staff home

Bloomberg Goldman Sachs Group Inc. sent some workers at its London office home after two employees tested positive for Covid-19. The staffers work on the fourth and fifth floors of Plumtree Court, and their close contacts have been notified, according to a memo sent to staff last week. The two employees, who last were in the building, are in self-isolation, ...

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Shadow bank recovery stalls in India as loan fears resurface

Bloomberg Signs of a recovery for India’s troubled shadow banks have taken a step backward as concerns reemerged about the true impact of the pandemic on the lenders. Average spreads on the lenders’ AAA rated five-year bonds rose for the first time in four months in September. Of three other gauges tracking shadow bank sector health compiled by Bloomberg, two ...

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