Banking

Bloomberg UniCredit SpA became the first big European bank to try to quantify the impact of the coronavirus, setting aside 900 million euros ($977 million) to cover potential loan losses stemming from the outbreak. Italy’s biggest bank said it will book the provisions for possible soured loans after estimating that the pandemic will cause a 13% contraction in the eurozone’s ...

Bloomberg European bank stocks are trading close their steepest-ever discount to US rivals and early signals show that first-quarter earnings may only reinforce the gap. The continent’s lenders, already in a tough spot before the coronavirus outbreak hit, are likely to detail more worrying news for their embattled investors. In Germany, Deutsche Bank AG may have seen credit trading weigh ...

Bloomberg Japanese lenders must brace for rising bad-loan costs and investment losses even as the financial system shows resilience to the coronavirus-fuelled economic slump, according to the central bank. If the downturn is prolonged, more companies at home at abroad could face solvency problems, raising credit costs, the Bank of Japan said on Tuesday in its semiannual Financial System Report. ...

Bloomberg Data on about 3,000 UniCredit SpA employees was put up for sale on cybercrime forums after a hacking attack. The data went on sale on April 19 and contained what the hacker said was information on UniCredit workers, including emails, phone numbers, encrypted passwords and names, Telsy, a unit of Telecom Italia SpA, wrote on its website. “The database ...

Bloomberg Chinese banks lowered borrowing costs and the government promised to sell another 1 trillion yuan ($141.3 billion) in bonds to pay for stimulus spending after the economy had its first contraction in decades due to the coronavirus outbreak. The one-year loan prime rate was set at 3.85% versus 4.05% in March, according to a statement from the People’s Bank ...

Bloomberg Wells Fargo & Co., Bank of America Corp., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and US Bancorp were sued by small businesses that accused the lenders of prioritising large loans distributed as part of the virus rescue package, shutting out the smallest firms that sought money. The four banks processed applications for the largest loan amounts because they generated the highest ...

Bloomberg India’s central bank has a number of policy options to draw upon to cushion the economic blow from Covid-19 pandemic. With a limited fiscal response so far, the Reserve Bank of India has taken the lead in providing virus relief to the economy. It’s cut interest rates by 75 basis points, injected more than $50 billion of liquidity into ...

Bloomberg Ping An Bank Co., the lending arm of China’s largest insurer, kicked off the earnings season for Chinese banks with better-than-estimated profit growth after ramping up loans to corporates even as the virus outbreak grounded the economy and led to a surge in personal defaults. Net income rose 14.8% to 8.5 billion yuan ($1.2 billion) in the first quarter, ...

Bloomberg HDFC Bank Ltd. reported net income growth of nearly 18% and ramped up bad loan provisions in the latest quarter, a period marked by the bailout of another bank as well as the imposition of a nationwide lockdown to stop the spread of coronavirus. Analysts remain bullish on HDFC Bank, with an average rating of 4.76 on a Bloomberg ...

Bloomberg ABN Amro Bank NV has become the latest lender to make a claim against a Singapore oil trading giant that filed for protection from creditors amid a plunge in oil prices. The Dutch bank filed applications for charges related to irrevocable letters of credit tied to goods and documents of Hin Leong Trading (Pte) Ltd., according to filings with ...