Banking

Bloomberg Europe moved to provide relief for its ailing banks as efforts to combat the coronavirus threaten to push more borrowers into default and disrupt lending. The Bank of England on Wednesday announced a package of emergency measures, including a 50 basis point rate cut and a lower capital buffer to free up cash for lending. Germany’s banking watchdogs earlier ...

Bloomberg The coronavirus outbreak will add $100 billion in credit losses to banks in the Asia-Pacific region this year with Chinese lenders bearing the brunt of the damage, according to S&P Global Inc. “Some activity will be lost forever,” Shaun Roache, S&P’s Asia-Pacific chief economist, wrote in a note on Tuesday. “We estimate an income loss of about $211 billion, ...

Bloomberg Bank of East Asia Ltd., (BEA) the Hong Kong lender that has been besieged by activist investor Paul Singer’s Elliott Management Corp., is considering options including a sale of insurance assets as part of its strategic review, according to people familiar with the matter. BEA could seek more than $1 billion from a sale of assets including its life ...

Bloomberg Bank of Montreal (BMO) is splitting up its trading operations in Canada, the US, Asia and London, following other firms including Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) in taking measures to ensure business continues amid the coronavirus outbreak. “We are separating some of our critical trading staff to our business continuity plan sites in some locations as part of our ...

Bloomberg JPMorgan Chase & Co. plans to eliminate as many as 140 positions at its private bank in Switzerland as it moves teams to cheaper locations to cut costs, according to a person familiar with the matter. The bank notified employees that it will be moving jobs in operations, technology and other support functions to locations including Scotland, the Philippines ...

Bloomberg Sweden’s Riksbank signalled it is preparing liquidity measures to protect the largest Nordic economy from the fallout of the coronavirus, but said interest-rate cuts aren’t likely to play a role in any emergency package. “Our assessment right now is that maintaining the supply of liquidity is the most important thing,” Governor Stefan Ingves said in a statement on Tuesday. ...

Bloomberg South Africa’s rand plunged by almost 8% against the dollar, touching its weakest level on a closing basis since January 1980, as investors fled riskier assets, with tumbling oil prices adding to nervousness spurred by the spreading coronavirus. The currency soon pared losses as investor panic eased to trade 1.9% weaker at 15.9726 per dollar in Johannesburg. It briefly ...

Bloomberg India, home to one of the world’s worst piles of bad debt, once again finds itself defending the stability of its financial system after the biggest bank failure in its history. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) took to Twitter to affirm the safety of deposits in the wake of a decision to seize Yes Bank Ltd. and invite ...

Bloomberg The French economy will barely grow this quarter as the coronavirus outbreak slams the brakes on activity in both services and industry, according to a Bank of France survey. The downbeat assessment comes amid concern that Europe may be headed for a recession after Italy put its industrial heartland into lockdown, and global equities and oil prices tumbled. It’s ...

Bloomberg JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon’s emergency heart surgery has put the spotlight on succession, and in Asia, on how much of the lender’s push into China hinges on his commitment. Dimon, who underwent surgery after suffering acute aortic dissection, has temporarily handed control of the largest US bank to his lieutenants. His plan to bring ...