Banking

Bloomberg A disappearing spread between money-market rates and expected policy equivalents indicates the Reserve Bank of Australia’s (RBA) official cash rate may no longer serve as the floor for borrowing costs. The three-month bank-bill swap rate — a gauge of Australian borrowing costs — has continued to slide, with its spread over a similar-tenor overnight index now poised to fall ...

Bloomberg Citigroup Inc.’s bond traders just posted their best quarter in eight years — a feat that was no match for the tidal wave of souring loans that walloped the bank’s profits. The deadly pandemic that sent global markets swooning helped the firm’s fixed-income, currencies and commodities traders generate $4.79 billion, trouncing analysts’ estimates by more than $1 billion. But ...

Bloomberg Investor demand for Switzerland’s currency, already trading at a five-year high, will increase as the country’s economy will outperform others during the recession, strategists at UBS Group AG predict. “Switzerland enters this recession with excellent credit quality, and its pandemic health situation is under control,” UBS strategists Thomas Flury and Gaetan Peroux wrote in a note to clients. “Hence ...

Bloomberg The yen’s advance this week may be a sign of things to come, with strategists in Tokyo saying the currency could climb towards 100 against the dollar in the next few months. Citigroup Global Markets Japan Inc. says the yen stands to gain as the Federal Reserve’s massive monetary stimulus weighs on the greenback. MUFG Bank Ltd. sees the ...

Bloomberg China’s central bank has given the green light for some commercial lenders to run trials of its digital currency, according to people familiar with the matter, bringing it a step closer to becoming the world’s first major monetary authority to issue its own digital tender. State-owned Chinese banks are conducting internal, hypothetical-use tests of a People’s Bank of China ...

Bloomberg China’s central bank injected medium-term funding into the financial system on Wednesday and cut the cost of the funds as expected, bolstering measures aimed at countering the economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic. The People’s Bank of China offered 100 billion yuan ($14 billion) via the one-year medium-term lending facility, cutting the rate to 2.95% from 3.15%. The reduction ...

Bloomberg More than one in ten mortgage borrowers in the UK have taken a payment holiday, less than a month after banks offered relief to those affected by the coronavirus pandemic. About 1.2 million customers were granted a mortgage holiday between March 17 and April 8, according to lobby group UK Finance. Banks trebled the number of breaks they gave ...

Bloomberg South Africa’s central bank unexpectedly cut its benchmark interest rate to a record low to support an economy that’s projected to slump even deeper into recession after the government extended a nationwide lockdown in response to the coronavirus. The repurchase rate was reduced to 4.25% from 5.25%, the South African Reserve Bank said in an emailed statement. The decision ...

Bloomberg JPMorgan Chase & Co. said first-quarter profit tumbled 69% to the lowest in more than six years as credit costs surged, giving investors a first glimpse at the extent of the damage Covid-19 is wreaking on bank results. The company set aside $8.29 billion for bad loans, the biggest provision in at least a decade and more than double ...

Bloomberg Credit Suisse Group AG shareholders should reject the bank’s compensation plan over proposed payments to former executives in the wake of a corporate spying scandal, a top shareholder adviser said. Investors should be concerned about lack of disclosure of overall compensation for former Chief Operating Officer Pierre-Olivier Bouee, who was blamed for the spying and fired in December, Glass ...