Banking

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, ...

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 ...