Banking

Bloomberg After aggressive interest-rate reductions to shore up their economies against the havoc wrought by the coronavirus pandemic, central bankers in most sub-Saharan African countries will ask themselves whether the cutting cycle is over when they meet over the next nine days. South Africa’s monetary policy committee (MPC) may take advantage of the scope to lower its benchmark rate even ...

Bloomberg Intesa Sanpaolo SpA sweetened its takeover offer for UBI Banca SpA by adding 652 million euros ($746 million) in cash as it tries to win approval of Italian investors hit by the pandemic. The Italian bank will pay additional 57 euro cents for each UBI share tendered in the offer in addition to the share swap it announced in ...

Bloomberg Barclays Plc warned of challenges to its capital strength and souring loans at its consumer and corporate businesses as British lenders gear up to battle deteriorating economic conditions. The UK’s third-largest bank by market value said its earnings later this month will “reflect challenging income and impairment conditions for the consumer and corporate businesses, and continuing strength of markets ...

Bloomberg Former Fed Chairs Ben Bernanke and Janet Yellen warned that the US economic recovery from the coronavirus shock could be slow and uneven and said the central bank may opt to cap yields on Treasury securities to help it along. “It is possible, though not certain,” that the Fed will implement yield-curve control, they wrote on the Brookings Institution ...

Bloomberg Bank of America Corp.’s (BofA) profit slid 52% as it joined rivals in preparing for an onslaught of consumer defaults spurred by pandemic’s economic fallout. Profit at the consumer-banking unit plunged 98% as the coronavirus shuttered much of the US economy and caused tens of millions of Americans to lose their jobs. The company allocated $5.1 billion for loan ...

Bloomberg Bank Indonesia lowered its key interest rate for a second straight month to bolster economic growth, and signalled further easing will depend on inflation and how the recovery from the coronavirus pandemic unfolds. The central bank cut its seven-day reverse repurchase rate by 25 basis points to 4%, the lowest since the current rate system was adopted in 2016, ...

Bloomberg DNB ASA, Norway’s biggest bank, delivered second-quarter earnings that beat even the most optimistic estimates as impairments proved less dire than feared. The Oslo-based lender’s net income reached 4.77 billion kroner ($508 million) in the three months through June. Impairments fell 63% from the first quarter, DNB said. Thomas Eskildsen, an analyst at Handelsbanken, said trading and commission income ...

Bloomberg The road to recovery for the US economy will be uneven, unclear and uncertain as the coronavirus retains its hold on business and Americans’ everyday activities, according to the heads of the nation’s biggest banks. In the wake of brighter data on employment, retail sales and housing over the last two months, most financial-institution executives curbed their enthusiasm about ...

Bloomberg HSBC Holdings global head of equities is leaving the lender as the bank revives restructuring plans that are hitting the securities unit. Hossein Zaimi, who has held the role within HSBC’s global banking and markets division since 2017, is leaving within weeks, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be named discussing private information. HSBC’s ...

Bloomberg Wells Fargo & Co. plummeted after reporting its first quarterly loss since 2008 as loan-loss provisions soared with the bank expecting a more severe downturn from the coronavirus pandemic. The firm set aside a record $9.5 billion for credit losses, about $4 billion more than analysts had expected. Wells Fargo executives had warned they would earmark more for soured ...