Banking

Bloomberg Citigroup Inc. set aside $7.9 billion for souring loans even as the bank’s revenue from fixed-income trading surged 68%, keeping bank solidly profitable. The $5.6 billion windfall from trading bonds, currencies and commodities was even greater than what the firm generated in the year’s first three months, when the pandemic set off a flood of client transactions. Combined with ...

Bloomberg JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s results were one more marker of the disconnect between ebullient markets and concern about the US economy. The biggest US bank said second-quarter profit fell 51% to $4.69 billion, a smaller drop than forecast, as record trading revenue helped counter the biggest loan-loss provision in the firm’s history. It’s the second consecutive quarter that trading ...

Bloomberg The Philippine central bank will likely keep policy accommodative over the next two years to deal with lingering economic damage from the coronavirus pandemic, Governor Benjamin Diokno said. “We know that this crisis may be protracted,” Diokno said when asked how long the central bank will continue its bond-buying and liquidity support programs. “At least for the next maybe ...

Bloomberg India’s shadow banks are benefiting from a drop in borrowing costs after government stimulus steps, but the troubled sector faces more challenges ahead as the economy reels from the pandemic. The lenders’ borrowing costs declined in June for a second straight month, according to a gauge that’s among four indicators compiled by Bloomberg to check on the health of ...

Bloomberg The Indonesian rupiah slumped to a seven-week low as traders positioned for a policy decision due on Thursday and concern about rising domestic virus infections damped sentiment. The rupiah dropped as much as 1% to 14,597 per dollar, the weakest level since May 29. BI is forecast to cut its key rate by 25 basis points to 4.00%. “If ...

Bloomberg Indian banks, which are already struggling with one of the world’s worst loan ratios, are set to face more pain as the coronavirus pandemic slams growth, the central bank’s chief warned, urging lenders to gird up their defenses. “The economic impact of the pandemic, due to the lockdown and the anticipated post-lockdown compression in economic growth, may result in ...

Bloomberg China may face a sharp rebound in non-performing loans after virus-relief incentives delayed the reflection of risk exposure on the balance sheet of lenders. The bad-loan ratio rose 8 basis points from the start of the year to 2.1% as of end-June, while non-performing loans are expected to increase, the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (CBIRC) said in a ...

Bloomberg Bank of Nova Scotia and Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce say they will fill at least 3.5% of senior executive and board positions in Canada with Black leaders by 2025. The two banks confirmed they plan to sign the BlackNorth Initiative CEO pledge, the brainchild of a group led by Wes Hall, a prominent Black executive who founded Toronto-based ...

Bloomberg Climate activist group Extinction Rebellion called on the Bank of England (BOE) to stop providing emergency funding to companies that contribute to climate change. The UK central bank should require companies that have received more than 18 billion pounds ($22.7 billion) of aid in recent months to commit to achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2025, according to a statement ...

Bloomberg US banks had only a few weeks’ experience with the full-blown pandemic when they last tried to forecast how bad things would get. Now, they’re about to reveal what three more months of Covid-19 did to the industry. Second-quarter results, set for release next week, will probably show that the trends that took hold at the start of the ...