Banking

Bloomberg American Express Co., long synonymous with premium travel rewards, will now offer a meditation app and credits for streaming services as the coronavirus pandemic forces its customers to stay home. As the outbreak made its way to the US, the credit-card issuer realised that many of its rewards tied to spending on airlines and hotels were becoming less relevant, ...

Bloomberg Societe Generale SA posted a surprise first-quarter loss after income from its stock-trading unit was wiped out in the market volatility caused by the coronavirus and the bank set aside 820 million euros ($890 million) to cover bad loans. Revenue from equities trading and the business of servicing hedge funds slumped 99% to just 9 million euros in the ...

Bloomberg Goldman Sachs Group Inc. offered a glimpse into the March madness that propelled Wall Street trading desks to their best quarterly performance in almost a decade. The firm’s traders pulled in more than $100 million on 14 separate days during the first quarter, Goldman Sachs said in a regulatory filing. Volatile markets were a boon for the business, which ...

Bloomberg It’s increasingly becoming a question of when, not if, the European Central Bank (ECB) will pump up its emergency bond buying program to help the most vulnerable euro-area economies avoid a deeper recession. With countries relying on borrowing to finance their response to the coronavirus pandemic, the ECB will likely take on more of that bond supply, as private ...

Bloomberg Deutsche Bank AG warned revenue will probably decline this year as a trading boost that lifted Wall Street banks in the first quarter fades and the coronavirus pandemic ripples through the economy. The first quarter was flat from a year earlier as a 13% increase in fixed-income trading helped offset lower income in the corporate bank and asset management, ...

Bloomberg Standard Chartered put aside $956 million against potential losses as souring loans spike during coronavirus pandemic, even as a trading boom lifted first-quarter revenue. The emerging markets-focused lender reported the biggest provisions since 2015 as clients across Asia, Africa and the Middle East got into difficulty because of lockdowns and travel restrictions. That reflects similar warnings from other global ...

Bloomberg A blockbuster quarter for Barclays Plc’s traders was overshadowed by a 2.1 billion pound ($2.6 billion) bad-loan charge stemming from the coronavirus pandemic. The securities division reported a 77% jump in first-quarter trading revenue on Wednesday as the virus whipsawed markets, beating the average 30% gain at US peers. However, the lender set aside its biggest quarterly provision in ...

Bloomberg The chief executive of Nordea Bank Abp said there’s no doubt loan losses will rise after the biggest Nordic bank reported a smaller spike than expected in impairments. It’s still “too early” to know how much damage the Covid-19 crisis will do to loan books, CEO Frank Vang-Jensen said in an interview with Bloomberg Television on Wednesday, shortly after ...

Bloomberg The current difficult market environment will create fertile ground for private equity and hedge funds to boost their performance, according to JPMorgan Asset Management. Expected returns for cap-weighted private equity have risen to 9.80%, up 1 percentage point from the last forecasts issued September 30, John Bilton, head of global multi-asset strategy, wrote in a note. The money manager’s ...

Bloomberg The European Central Bank’s (ECB) response to the coronavirus has calmed markets while setting it on a path that could test its commitment to the mission to keep prices stable. With governments struggling to agree on joint fiscal action, President Christine Lagarde and her colleagues have ramped up bond-buying of vulnerable nations, soothing investor concerns over the cost of ...