Banking

Bloomberg Iceland’s central bank made a second emergency cut to its benchmark interest rate inside a week as the number of confirmed cases of coronavirus rose to 247 in the tiny north Atlantic nation. The seven-day term deposits rate was reduced by 0.5 percentage points to 1.75%, its lowest level ever. Sedlabanki also reduced countercyclical capital buffer on financial institutions ...

Bloomberg Bank of America Corp. (BofA) pledged to donate $100 million to support populations hurt by the coronavirus. The funds will be distributed to various communities, as well as national and global organisations, the bank said. They’re intended to aid medical response, address food insecurity, assist educational efforts amid school closures and support vulnerable populations, according to the Charlotte, North ...

Bloomberg Germany’s financial watchdogs eliminated a key capital requirement for the country’s banks to keep credit flowing to an economy that’s approaching a standstill as the coronavirus spreads. The countercylical capital buffer, meant to strengthen banks in good times for a downturn, will be cut to 0% starting on April 1 and remain there until at least through December, the ...

Bloomberg Japanese banks tapped into the Federal Reserve’s revamped swap lines, taking up a total of about $32 billion in the first operation since the US central bank lowered rates on Sunday. Lenders from the Asian nation borrowed about $30.3 billion for 84 days at 0.370% in the swap coordinated by The Bank of Japan. They borrowed about $2.05 billion ...

Bloomberg Chinese banks face an unprecedented drop in profits this year as bad loans surge because of the coronavirus outbreak, according to UBS Group AG. In a severe downside case, China’s banking industry could see bad debt jump to 5.2 trillion yuan in 2020, UBS analysts led by May Yan said. The estimate is based on an assumption that China’s ...

Bloomberg JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Citigroup Inc. told employees if they can work from home to begin doing so this week, escalating efforts to prevent the deadly coronavirus from spreading among staff. Australia’s Macquarie Group Ltd. has gone further, telling the vast majority of its staff globally to work from home. Citigroup’s directive, which applies to employees in the ...

Bloomberg The Indonesian rupiah dropped to its weakest since the emerging market rout of 2018, as a sell-off in the nation’s bonds and stocks show little signs of abating with a worsening coronavirus pandemic. The currency slipped as much as 1.5% to 15,160 per dollar on Tuesday, the lowest since November 2018. The benchmark 10-year bond yield surged 17 basis ...

Bloomberg US banks may be downgraded by Moody’s Investors Service in wake of Federal Reserve’s rate cut and as the worldwide coronavirus pandemic rattles markets. The outlook for lenders was changed to negative from stable, Moody’s said. Moody’s cited “the growing strain on banks’ operating environment and asset risk from the coronavirus disruption of economic and business activity.” Major US ...

Bloomberg Andrew Bailey knows a few things about crises, which should put him good stead when he took the helm of the Bank of England as it tries to stave off recession triggered by the coronavirus pandemic. The 60-year-old is already in the heart of the action. Just hours before he officially started, he was part of a coordinated move ...

Bloomberg The Federal Reserve (Fed) and five counterparts united to ensure that dollars keep flowing around the world after the coronavirus emergency sparked a rush for greenbacks. In coordinated statements, the Fed, Bank of Japan (BOJ), European Central Bank (ECB), Swiss National Bank (SNB), Bank of Canada and Bank of England (BOE) said they would use their swap lines to ...