Banking

Bloomberg An investigation paid for by Swedbank AB into allegations of financial crime found that client transactions totaling 36.7 billion euros ($40 billion) represented a “high risk” of money laundering. “It’s obvious that there have been cultures in the bank that are not acceptable,” Swedbank CEO Jens Henriksson said in a statement on Monday. A review has been launched to ...

Bloomberg Bank of France Governor Francois Villeroy de Galhau said Europe’s rescue fund should be activated to lend to states struggling with the coronavirus outbreak, a move that could pave the way for further sovereign bond purchases by the European Central Bank. Villeroy’s call comes as euro-area officials consider a plan that would see the European Stability Mechanism set up ...

Bloomberg The Bank of Thailand is seeking to backstop market stability after a jump in bond yields stoked concerns that stresses are building up. The monetary authority pledged to ensure sufficient liquidity for markets to function well as it unveiled an emergency interest-rate cut to counter the economic shock of the coronavirus outbreak. Governor Veerathai Santiprabhob and other key guardians ...

Bloomberg New Zealand’s central bank has taken the historic leap to quantitative easing to try to limit a looming recession as the negative economic impacts of the coronavirus outbreak intensify. The Reserve Bank will buy up to NZ$30 billion ($17 billion) of government bonds in the secondary market over the next 12 months, it said in a statement on Monday. ...

Bloomberg Central banks started the new week right where they left off on Friday — massively buying government debt to provide liquidity. Bond yields tumbled in Australia and New Zealand. The Reserve Bank of Australia and the Bank of Japan offered to buy the equivalent of almost $10 billion in debt on Monday. While credit markets globally are seeing the ...

Bloomberg The Swiss National Bank (SNB) is stepping up currency interventions to stem the franc’s advance, choosing that measure over an interest-rate cut to combat the economic fallout from the coronavirus outbreak. It said the virus poses “exceptionally large challenges” and that the currency is “even more highly valued.” That change to its wording on the franc is a warning ...

Bloomberg Bank of America Corp. (BofA) and JPMorgan Chase & Co. plan to make special payments to branch, call-center and operations employees who can’t work from home during the coronavirus pandemic. JPMorgan, the biggest US bank, will make payments of $1,000 — $500 next month, and the rest in May — to branch workers as well as operations and call-center ...

Bloomberg UBS Group AG is making “several billion” Swiss francs available to small and mid-sized companies as it backs Switzerland’s measures to help businesses hit by the coronavirus pandemic. The bank will provide liquidity to smaller Swiss corporate clients “who find themselves in need through no fault of their own,” the lender said in a statement. Amortisation payments or leasing ...

Bloomberg Flagstar Bancorp, one of the United State’s biggest lenders to mortgage providers, has stopped funding most new home loans without government backing. The move, announced to its customers, deprives the housing market of one of the country’s 10 largest so-called warehouse lenders. Other lenders that make non-traditional mortgages to households will no longer be able to borrow from Troy, ...

Bloomberg Nigeria’s central bank will migrate to a single exchange rate for the naira by collapsing the multiple exchange rate policy that determined the value for the local currency, people with direct knowledge of the matter said. The West African nation will merge the official rate, the rate for importers and exporters and rate for foreign-exchange bureaus, among others, according ...