Banking

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, ...

Bloomberg The Bank of Japan (BOJ) is likely to consider upgrading its economic assessment amid signs of a rebound from the economy’s worst contraction on record last quarter, people familiar with the matter said. Any changes would acknowledge that Japan’s slump has bottomed, rather than indicate optimism about the outlook, according to the people. BOJ officials continue to see Japan’s ...

Bloomberg The European Central Bank’s (ECB) emergency stimulus program is endangering the region’s climate-change objectives by “feeding a natural gas frenzy,” according to environmental campaigners. The central bank is buying bonds from fossil-fuel project developers including Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Total SE and Engie SA, Paris-based Reclaim Finance said in a statement. The Bank of France Governor Francois Villeroy de ...

Bloomberg UK home buyers returning to the market after the coronavirus lockdown are finding they’re not benefiting from record-low central bank interest rates. Five months after the Bank of England (BOE) slashed its benchmark to 0.1%, mortgage rates have barely changed as banks fret about risks. For people with smaller deposits, average borrowing costs actually increased by more than half ...

Bloomberg Switzerland’s financial regulator (Finma) started enforcement proceedings against Credit Suisse Group over a spying scandal that led to the ouster of ex-Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Tidjane Thiam. The move marks an escalation of regulatory involvement in the espionage charges, which also triggered probes by Swiss prosecutors. Finma said it will pursue any potential violations of supervisory law, and in ...

Bloomberg Australia’s central bank expanded a lending facility for banks as it kept key policies unchanged, and signalled a renewed willingness to explore additional measures to boost an economy still mired in recession. “The board will maintain highly accommodative settings as long as is required,” Reserve Bank chief Philip Lowe said after keeping both the cash rate and three-year yield ...

Bloomberg Nigerian naira strengthened to its strongest level in informal trading since at least April as supplies of the US currency surged ahead of an auction set for next week by the central bank. The local unit traded 440 naira per dollar on Wednesday from a peak of 477 naira last week, according to abokifx.com, which collates rates from street ...

Bloomberg Deutsche Bank AG Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Christian Sewing says showing skeptical analysts he can hit revenue targets is the lender’s next big challenge after convincing the market on cost and capital goals. Speaking at a conference in Frankfurt, Sewing re-affirmed a target of making a pretax profit this year, even though the bank is expected to make a ...

Bloomberg New Zealand central bank (RBNZ) Governor Adrian Orr signalled his intent to continue to loosen monetary policy as required, saying he’s determined to head off unnecessarily low inflation or even deflation. While persistently low interest rates could lead to undue risk-taking and pose financial stability risks, Orr said these were outweighed by the damage that stagnant or falling prices ...