Banking

Bloomberg Rand Merchant Bank (RAB) urged South African lenders and other finance firms to adopt a more coordinated approach with the government to the economic crisis caused by the coronavirus outbreak. While South Africa’s banks have made a constructive effort to cushion customers from the impact so far, a much broader response is needed, James Formby, the chief executive officer of ...

Bloomberg The British banking regulator pressed firms including HSBC Holdings Plc to scrap dividends and cash payouts for its top staff as the coronavirus pandemic upends the industry. HSBC and Standard Chartered Plc shares tumbled after they and Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc, Barclays Plc and Lloyds Banking Group Plc canceled outstanding dividends and buybacks and said there would ...

Bloomberg European banks are likely to see 120 billion euros ($131 billion) in potential profit disappear over the next three years as the spreading coronavirus upends clients and economies, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Goldman Sachs analysts led by Jernej Omahen shredded their profit forecasts for the sector through 2023 by 27%, four times the 30-billion euro hit to ...

Bloomberg JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s alternative-investments division is seeking to raise as much as $10 billion in an effort to bolster its spending power as the Covid-19 pandemic roils global markets. “The magnitude of these dislocations is so significant,” Anton Pil, the global head of alternatives for JPMorgan’s asset-management arm, said in an interview. “And to get some of these ...

Bloomberg The European Central Bank (ECB) will explore all possible options to support the economy in the current phase of acute difficulty, Bank of Italy Governor Ignazio Visco said in a speech. “As part of our mandate, we are willing to increase the volume of purchases, to change their composition,” said Visco, who is also a European Central Bank Governing ...

Bloomberg As the number of countries going into lockdowns to fight the coronavirus pandemic increases, emerging markets may institute capital controls, according to Citigroup Inc. “There’s a decent case to make that we might be approaching a world in which policy makers start to restrict the movement of capital in just the same way that they are restricting the movement ...

Bloomberg The credit ratings of South Africa’s five largest banks were downgraded deeper into junk by Fitch Ratings, which cited a deteriorating operating environment following the outbreak of the novel coronavirus. The ratings were reduced by one notch to BB, two steps below investment grade and one notch lower than that of South Africa, Fitch said in a statement late ...

Bloomberg A group of sixteen banks will have to provide $23 billion of loans to T-Mobile US Inc. in order to allow the mobile carrier to close its planned acquisition of Sprint Corp., after the Covid-19 outbreak disrupted plans to sell the debt to third-party investors. The banks were formally notified that they will need to make the funds available ...

Bloomberg Pakistan’s central bank is said to have intervened to stop a plunge in the rupee, the worst performer in Asia this week. The South Asian nation’s currency fell to a record low 168 to a dollar in intraday trading as per traders before closing at 165.54, data posted on the website of the State Bank of Pakistan showed. The ...

Bloomberg As central banks around the world reignite quantitative easing programs or adopt them for the first time, Japan’s key focus of controlling bond yields rather than a quota of purchases is being explored. When the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) broke the emergency glass on March 19, it set a target for the yield on three-year Australian government bonds ...