Banking

Bloomberg State Bank of India (SBI) said it will immediately invest 24.5 billion rupees ($332 million) in Yes Bank Ltd. as part of a central bank-backed rescue plan for the embattled lender. SBI, the country’s largest bank, won’t ask the federal government for capital to fund the rescue and may instead work with other investors, Chairman Rajnish Kumar told reporters ...

Bloomberg Global central banks have no room to fight the crisis caused by the coronavirus outbreak, according to Deutsche Bank AG. “Policy failure is here,” George Saravelos, bank’s global head of currency research, wrote in a note. “We disagree with central bank pronouncements that there is room to fight the crisis.” Market turmoil around the world deepened, as growing fears ...

Bloomberg Argentina’s latest debt dilemma is whether to pay or delay its local peso debt. While the country’s billions of dollars in foreign debt with private creditors and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have been the primary focus for investors, the nation now faces a hurdle that’s just as large: the almost 1.8 trillion pesos ($29 billion) in local debt ...

Bloomberg Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas President Robert Kaplan said the pace of acceleration in the coronavirus across the US will be an important factor as he weighs the need for another interest rate cut when policy makers meet later this month. “I am going to be watching very, very carefully the path of diagnosed cases,” Kaplan said in a ...

Bloomberg Mastercard Inc. closed its office in Sao Paulo and an annex location near its headquarters in New York after an employee contracted coronavirus. The Brazil-based employee traveled to the annex office in Purchase, New York, earlier this week, the company said in a statement. The two locations are undergoing a “thorough sanitisation process,” it said. “While it is believed ...

Bloomberg The Federal Reserve slashed interest rates by half a percentage point in the first such emergency move since the 2008 financial crisis, amid mounting concern that the coronavirus outbreak threatens to stall the record US economic expansion. The rate cut, which came between the central bank’s regularly scheduled meetings, was announced hours after Group of Seven finance chiefs held ...

Bloomberg European Union (EU) officials are weighing a new crackdown on bank bailouts after national governments exploited loopholes in rules passed in the wake of the financial crisis. One focus of the discussions is the so-called “precautionary recapitalisation” rule that Italy used to inject 5.4 billion euros ($6 billion) into Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA in 2017, according ...

Bloomberg Brazil’s central bank opened the door to more interest rate cuts as it signalled that the outbreak of the new coronavirus creates a bigger risk of an economic slowdown than of a spike in inflation. Policy makers said that they’re closely monitoring the effects of the epidemic on financial markets and on the wider economy. Its impact on Brazil’s ...

Bloomberg India’s central bank governor said he’s ready to act to shield the economy from the coronavirus and reiterated there’s room to cut interest rates if needed. Speaking in an interview with Bloomberg News in Mumbai hours before the Federal Reserve slashed interest rates by half a percentage point in an emergency move, Shaktikanta Das said “there is a strong ...

Bloomberg The Bank of Korea (BOK) said on Wednesday it will seek to monitor and stabilise markets, stopping short of following the Federal Reserve in easing policy to respond to the coronavirus epidemic. The BOK said it would consider changes in the policy environment, including the Fed’s 0.5% rate cut and a joint statement from Group of Seven finance chiefs ...