Bloomberg JPMorgan Chase & Co will raise mortgage borrowing standards starting Tuesday, Reuters reported, citing Chief Marketing Officer for home lending businesses Amy Bonitatibus. Customers applying for a new mortgage will need a credit score of at least 700 and will be asked to pay 20% of the home’s value as a down payment, according to the report. JPMorgan & ...
Read More »Banking
Fed has firepower to boost US economy
Bloomberg The Federal Reserve may not be done with its all-out blitz to help the US economy survive a coronavirus-induced shutdown, even after launching an unprecedented $2.3 trillion in lending programs. The central bank used up only about 40% of the as much as $454 billion in seed capital that Congress provided it in extending help to small and mid-sized ...
Read More »PBOC increases stake in India’s mortgage lender
Bloomberg The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) has raised its stake in Housing Development Finance Corp. to just over 1%. China’s central bank held about 17.5 million shares at the end of March, according to quarterly data filed by India’s biggest mortgage lender to exchanges. It is mandatory for companies to disclose shareholding of more than 1% at the end ...
Read More »ECB: Europe likely to see a more severe recession
Bloomberg Europe is likely to experience a more severe recession than the rest of the world, but growth should start in the second half of the year, the European Central Bank’s vice president said. A genuine recovery might take until 2021, but the first signs of growth should be visible starting in the third quarter of the year, Luis de ...
Read More »BOE lifeline shields UK virus response from market risks
Bloomberg The UK government’s overdraft extension at the Bank of England (BOE) shows that the coronavirus pandemic will be so costly that even the country’s leadership is worrying about how to finance it. As the UK unleashes the biggest fiscal stimulus in decades, the concern is that its borrowing strains the ability of debt markets to soak it up, pushing ...
Read More »OCBC chief vows to avoid staff cuts amid Covid-19
Bloomberg Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp., (OCBC) Southeast Asia’s second-largest bank, has joined some global peers in pledging it won’t lay off staff due to the coronavirus pandemic. “We do not plan to have retrenchment exercise arising from this outbreak,†Chief Executive Officer Samuel Tsien said in a recent memo to employees. Despite the expected hit to the bank’s revenue growth, Singapore-based ...
Read More »China’s bank lending surges after PBOC steps up support
Bloomberg China’s bank lending and credit provision hit records in March, indicating that government and central bank efforts to boost support for the economy are having an effect. Aggregate financing increased by 5.15 trillion yuan ($732 billion) last month, compared to a median estimate of 3.14 trillion yuan. That was a record for any month in comparable data back to ...
Read More »Foreign central banks sell $21.7bn Treasuries
Bloomberg Foreign official holdings of Treasuries stashed at the Federal Reserve declined $21.7 billion during the first week of April, as the economic consequences of the coronavirus roiled governments and central banks around the world. The decrease appeared in the Fed’s weekly custody data, with the latest figure indicating a drop for the week that ended April 8. That’s the ...
Read More »Canada banks approve $2bn of business loans
Bloomberg Canada’s five biggest banks approved about 69,000 in loans on the opening day of the federal government’s relief program for small businesses hurt by the coronavirus pandemic. That totals $2 billion if every client took the full amount allowed under the Canada Emergency Business Account, which offers government-guaranteed loans of as much as C$40,000 that are interest-free through 2022. ...
Read More »South African banks seek loan guarantees amid virus fallout
Bloomberg South African banks are pushing for the creation of a loan-guarantee program to boost the flow of credit as lenders ramp up efforts to help clients cope with the coronavirus fallout. The nation is in its second week of a 21-day lockdown to contain the spread of Covid-19, which if extended could further cripple an economy already in recession. ...
Read More »