Banking

Bloomberg HSBC Holdings Plc pledged to boost investments in China to capture more wealth and retail clients even as political tension escalates after Beijing launched sweeping new security legislation to crack down on Hong Kong. The bank, which has come under fire over its support for the legislation, announced it was starting a new service to provide customers in mainland ...

Bloomberg China’s banking and insurance regulator for the first time published names of companies that it alleges committed shareholder violations in the industry, warning investors against misbehaviour as the sector tries to attract private and foreign capital. The China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission’s list of 38 companies, published on its website, didn’t identify the banks or insurers they invested ...

Bloomberg Nigeria’s central bank devalued the naira at one of its currency auctions, according to people familiar with matter. The weakening comes after Governor Godwin Emefiele announced last month that the bank plans to unify its multiple exchange rates to improve the transparency of its currency-management system. At an auction for importers, the central bank asked that bids for foreign ...

Bloomberg European Central Bank (ECB) President Christine Lagarde’s signature crisis-fighting tool is becoming the focus of disagreement among policy makers in what could amount to her first major test of discipline. Governing Council members face a potential rift over how much their emergency bond-purchase program should stay weighted towards weaker countries such as Italy, according to multiple conversations with central-bank ...

Bloomberg Unione di Banche Italiane SpA (UBI) rejected Intesa Sanpaolo SpA’s unsolicited takeover bid as insufficient and increased its dividend estimate just days before the public offer is set to start. The value of the offer is “inadequate” and “penalizes the shareholders of UBI Banca compared with the shareholders of Intesa” the bank said in a statement on Friday. The ...

Bloomberg Indonesia’s central bank may buy billions of dollars of sovereign bonds at zero interest, or below its benchmark rate to help the government finance a wider deficit arising out of stimulus measures to counter fallout of the coronavirus pandemic. Bank Indonesia may bear the full cost of an expanded health care and social safety net budget of $27.6 billion ...

Bloomberg UK households continued to amass savings and pay down debt in May as stores remained closed for a second month in an effort to the stop the spread of coronavirus. The build-up of money in bank accounts reflects both the reduced opportunities to spend and the fact that the wages of millions of furloughed workers are being paid by ...

Bloomberg The Bank of Korea (BOK) said unemployment and other economic fallout from the pandemic will accelerate already existing declines in South Korea’s potential growth rate. Higher jobless rates, more people dropping out of the workforce, and a delayed recovery in corporate investment will exacerbate a downward trend that started before the coronavirus, the bank said in a report. Slowing ...

Bloomberg An incessant steepening in Japan’s yield curve is raising the stakes for the central bank’s monthly bond-buying plan. Faced with mounting losses on their portfolios, investors are looking to the Bank of Japan to boost purchases of super-long debt to ease the pressure. The spread between 10-year and 30-year yields widened for a third month in June in the ...

Bloomberg Work from home may remain part of the norm for many in India’s financial industry beyond the end of the world’s biggest lockdown. The reason: elimination of lengthy commutes in the past three months has boosted employee productivity. Take Jefferies’ India team for example. On average, its 60 members have managed to save over an hour every day on ...