Banking

Bloomberg India’s anti-money laundering agency fined Standard Chartered Plc $13.6 million for breaking foreign exchange rules when it worked on the takeover of a local bank, marking one of the country’s biggest penalties imposed on an overseas lender. An eight-year probe found that Standard Chartered violated the so-called foreign exchange management act — which monitors offshore financial transactions — when ...

Bloomberg Australia’s central bank (RBA) will boost its bond-buying program or cut interest rates to help revive the economy from its first recession in almost 30 years, a survey showed. Seven of 11 economists predict the Reserve Bank will ramp up quantitative easing by expanding its bond purchasing program, with UBS Group AG’s George Tharenou positing that this could begin ...

Bloomberg State Bank of India priced one of the riskiest bank capital securities at a record-low coupon, in the latest sign that investors are confident policy makers’ stimulus steps will help large issuers weather the pandemic. India’s biggest bank will sell 40 billion rupees ($545 million) of the so-called Additional Tier 1 bonds at a coupon of 7.74%. That’s the ...

Bloomberg Danske Bank will pay out as much as $16 million to its private banking clients after failing to warn them that putting their savings into low-risk investments could cost them money. “Our review shows that approximately 900 customers were not adequately informed about the expected negative net return for the affected low-risk strategies,” Bente Nielsen, head of private banking ...

Bloomberg The Malaysian ringgit has defied the odds to outperform most of its Asian peers. Now investors will be watching to see if it survives the trials of September. A three-month rally in the currency could come to a halt when FTSE Russell announces a decision on whether it’ll retain ringgit bonds in its World Government Bond Index. A lesser ...

Bloomberg Singapore’s financial regulator said it will introduce measures to enhance banks’ access to local and US dollar funding to protect the city state’s financial sector against the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic. From September 28, the new facility will provide banks and financial firms an additional channel to borrow Singapore dollar funds at longer tenors and will allow ...

Bloomberg Credit Suisse Group AG may have spied on other employees beyond former star banker Iqbal Khan and its ex-head of human resources, Swiss newspaper SonntagsZeitung reported, citing people familiar with the matter and a probe of the bank’s activities by banking regulator Finma. The Swiss bank surveilled a former employee in the US as well as an ex-staff member ...

Bloomberg Spain’s CaixaBank SA and Bankia SA are exploring a merger to form the largest lender in the country and kickstart consolidation in one of the hardest-hit European economies during the pandemic. The firms are examining an all-share transaction, CaixaBank said in a statement overnight, in a deal that would create a lender with a combined market value of about ...

Bloomberg Deutsche Bank AG has dropped its pursuit of Wirecard AG’s banking unit and related assets after balking at the price sought by the payments company’s insolvency administrator. Wirecard’s insolvency administrator, Michael Jaffe, had been seeking at least $119 million to proceed with a sale of the assets rather than a liquidation. Deutsche Bank had submitted a bid for some ...

Bloomberg Asia’s wealthy are readying cash to take advantage of opportunities in financial markets and private equity once the impact of the coronavirus pandemic subsides, according to the head of private banking at Southeast Asia’s largest lender. Clients have increased cash holdings to about 40% of their portfolios in recent months, up from about 30% before the pandemic, Joseph Poon, ...