Banking

Bloomberg The kiwi has all but priced in a negative New Zealand cash rate. All that’s left is the question of when. After rallying more than 20% from its March low, the currency is coming under pressure as traders bet the benchmark rate could drop below zero in the first few months of 2021. Economic growth and consumer confidence data ...

Bloomberg United Overseas Bank Ltd. (UOB) has imposed a freeze on hiring, pay and promotions as the Singapore lender prepares for a further decline in earnings following the coronavirus pandemic. The city state’s third-largest bank told staff that it expects the situation to worsen before improving when the government cuts some of its support, according to an internal memo sent ...

Bloomberg Barclays Plc asked Pritpal Gill, head of foreign exchange trading in Asia Pacific, to leave after about 18 months with the British lender. Gill, head of G10 foreign exchange and foreign exchange options trading in the region, is departing as part of cost cutting measures across the bank’s corporate and investment divisions. Gill joined Barclays in January 2019 and ...

Bloomberg Citigroup Inc. will resume job cuts starting this week, joining rivals such as Wells Fargo & Co. in ending an earlier pledge to pause staff reductions during the coronavirus pandemic. The cuts will affect less than 1% of the global workforce, the bank said in a statement. With recent hiring, overall headcount probably won’t show any drops, Citigroup said. ...

Bloomberg Taiwan’s central bank urged traders to show restraint in sales of US dollars and not to offload large amounts in single transactions, but didn’t set a cap, according to a statement from the monetary authority. The statement follows media reports that central bank has restricted banks’ sales of US currency to no more than $5 million per trade in ...

Bloomberg The Philippine central bank is prepared to lend more to the government, helping to boost state funding to counter the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, Governor Benjamin Diokno said on Monday. The comments come days after President Rodrigo Duterte signed into law a measure providing 165.5 billion pesos ($3.4 billion) for pandemic relief. The law allows Bangko Sentral ng ...

Bloomberg Sweden’s central bank will make good on its promise to enter the corporate bond market, as it begins buying 10 billion kronor ($1.1 billion) worth of securities. But the move, which the Riksbank says will rein in funding costs for businesses and help contain credit supply shocks, has courted controversy ever since it was announced in July. Some investors ...

Bloomberg Deutsche Bank AG plans to boost lending to commodity traders in the Middle East to help double the size of its regional business. The German lender, which on Monday appointed Loic Voide and Kees Hoving as co-chief executive officers for the Middle East and Africa, is also targeting bond markets for growth in the region. “In the next five ...

Bloomberg After a blistering rally of 34% from this year’s record low against the dollar, Norway’s krone may be running low on steam. The Scandinavian currency completed a second weekly loss versus both the greenback and euro, in step with declines in the price of oil — Norway’s top export. Furthermore, krone gains in recent months were fuelled in part ...

Bloomberg President Christine Lagarde said the recent appreciation of the euro has partly offset the positive impact that the European Central Bank’s (ECB) stimulus had in boosting inflation and reiterated that policy makers stand ready to adjust all of their instruments if needed. The Governing Council will carefully assess all the information coming from the euro-area economy, including developments in ...