Banking

BLOOMBERG  Bank of England (BOE) policy maker Swati Dhingra cautioned against raising interest rates further, saying that doing so could damage an already weak UK economy. The newest official on the central bank’s nine-member Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) said it would be prudent to hold borrowing costs steady for now and noted there’s little evidence of an inflationary spiral. “Overtightening ...

BLOOMBERG UBS Group AG raised Chief Executive Officer Ralph Hamers’ compensation for last year by 11%, making him one of Europe’s best-paid bank bosses, even as bonuses for the rest of the firm were cut in a challenging period for dealmaking. Hamers received 12.2 million Swiss francs ($13 million) for his second full year in the job. That included a ...

BLOOMBERG Crypto exchange Bybit is suspending US dollar-denominated deposits and withdrawals via bank transfers, including SWIFT payments. Dollar wire deposits have been temporarily suspended and withdrawals will be halted on March 10, the platform said on its website, citing “service outages from our end-point processing partner.” Bybit said customers can use other methods to buy and withdraw crypto. It didn’t ...

BLOOMBERG Sri Lanka vowed to soon restore a flexible exchange-rate regime after unexpectedly raising its benchmark interest rate as the troubled nation looks to secure a $2.9 billion International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout to steady its economy. “Sri Lanka’s rupee will be fully market-driven from next week,” Governor Nandalal Weerasinghe said at a press briefing after the Central Bank of ...

BLOOMBERG Mexico’s peso briefly strengthened past a key 18-per-dollar mark for the first time in five years as the nation’s high interest rates and proximity to the US lure traders. The currency rose as much as 0.7% to 17.9952 against the greenback, the highest intraday level since April 2018. The peso is the best performer of the year so far ...

BLOOMBERG The Federal Reserve said that further interest-rate hikes would be required to restore price stability. “The committee is strongly committed to returning inflation to its 2% objective,” the Fed said in its semi-annual report to Congress. Officials expect that “ongoing increases in the target range will be appropriate in order to attain a stance of monetary policy that is ...

BLOOMBERG The Bank of Canada (BoC) is limited in how much its interest rate increases can lag behind those of the Federal Reserve, with the gap threatening to weaken its currency and fuel inflation, according to an economist at Bank of Nova Scotia. Canada’s central bank was able to tighten less than the Fed in previous cycles when core inflation ...

BLOOMBERG One of the pioneers of European Central Bank (ECB) monetary policy has a stark warning for officials about the threat of more inflation bearing down on the region’s economy. Otmar Issing, the former Bundesbanker who became the first chief economist of the Frankfurt-based institution in 1998, reckons further consumer-price pressures may already be in the pipeline. “I expect that ...

BLOOMBERG Two Federal Reserve policymakers cautioned that recent stronger-than-expected readings on the US economy could push them to raise interest rates by more than previously expected. In remarks, Governor Christopher Waller said that if payroll and inflation data cool after hot prints in January, “then I would endorse raising the target range for the federal funds rate a couple more ...

BLOOMBERG European Central Bank (ECB) Governing Council member Pierre Wunsch said market bets for interest rates to reach a 4% peak may prove accurate if underlying price pressures remain elevated. How far borrowing costs must rise “depends very much on the evolution of core inflation,” the Belgian central bank chief said, referring to the measure of consumer-price growth that strips ...