Banking

Bloomberg UBS Group AG and Credit Suisse Group AG are likely to face worsening credit quality and falling demand for wealth-management and investment-banking services because of the pandemic, according to the Swiss National Bank (SNB). Credit quality is expected to deteriorate both in Switzerland and abroad, the national bank said in its annual Financial Stability Report. A stock market correction ...

Bloomberg Norway’s central bank signalled it might be ready to raise its main interest rate from a crisis low in about two years, as an historic wave of stimulus helps revive the economy. The bank left its benchmark deposit rate at a record low of zero, as expected, after delivering three cuts earlier in the year to steer the richest ...

Bloomberg Indonesia’s central bank cut its benchmark interest rate for the first time in three months and lowered its growth outlook for the year, days after the government warned of a severe hit to the economy from the coronavirus pandemic. Bank Indonesia lowered its seven-day reverse repurchase rate by 25 basis points to 4.25% on Thursday, ending a two-month pause. ...

Bloomberg A hiring slowdown at banks in Asia is beginning to thaw, driven by demand for coders. Lenders including DBS Group Holding Ltd., Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp. (OCBC) and Citigroup Inc. are adding workers to their tech departments in the region despite the economic downturn. Financial institutions are especially hungry for mobile app designers and data scientists who can build systems ...

Bloomberg HSBC Holdings Plc has restarted cutting as many as 35,000 jobs, three months after the coronavirus outbreak forced it to pause a long-awaited overhaul to boost profitability. “Since February we have pressed forward with some aspects of our transformation program, but we now need to look to the long term and move ahead with others, including reducing our costs,” ...

Bloomberg Call it the Falciani Principle. A former UBS Group AG employee who’s appealing his conviction for commercial espionage and money laundering skipped his Swiss court appearance, as expected, to avoid likely arrest. The man, only identified as Rene S., was convicted in absentia last year and sentenced to 40 months in prison after fleeing to Germany. That’s similar to ...

Bloomberg China’s central bank said it will temporarily purchase loans made to small businesses from some local banks, a new policy to boost the supply of lending to the real economy. The plan will use 400 billion yuan ($56 billion) from a separate program to buy 40% of unsecured loans to small and medium-sized firms with maturities of at least ...

Bloomberg The two British institutions that dominate Hong Kong’s banking system backed Beijing in the standoff over a proposed new security law, joining Jardine Matheson Holdings Ltd. and some of the city’s biggest developers in wading into the political minefield of the former colony’s future. HSBC Holdings Plc, born in the 19th century as the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corp., ...

Bloomberg Bank of America Corp. (BofA) pledged to donate $1 billion over the next four years to address economic and racial inequality that’s has worsened during the coronavirus pandemic. The funds will be directed to programs that focus on health, jobs, small businesses and housing, particularly in communities with many people of colour, the bank said. Those efforts may include ...

Bloomberg British banks are flooding the economy with billions in loans every week as the demand for emergency funding for businesses persists. Lenders have so far issued over 31.3 billion pounds ($39 billion) to more than 745,000 businesses through government-backed schemes, according to UK Finance which represents finance and banking firms in London. As of May 31, banks have lent ...