Banking

Bloomberg Bank of Ireland Group Plc shares fell to a four-month low after profits fell, impairment charges rose more than expected and the lender’s dividend disappointed investors. Ireland’s biggest lender posted an underlying profit for 2019 of 758 million euros ($821 million), down nearly a fifth from a year ago, the company said in Dublin on Monday. The drop was ...

Bloomberg A decade-long slide in Australian interest rates is threatening to turn one of the global currency market’s most popular wagers on its head. Investors with an appetite for a little risk had a winner for years with a carry trade that saw them borrow trillions of yen at near-zero rates and use the money to buy Australian dollars. Holding ...

Bloomberg UniCredit SpA’s Jean Pierre Mustier pulled out of the race to become chief executive officer of HSBC Holdings Plc, a rejection that adds to uncertainty at the top of Europe’s largest lender and extends the search for a new boss into its seventh month. Mustier, who led a turnaround at the Milan-based bank over the last four years, plans ...

Bloomberg China’s banking regulator is considering setting up new regional bad-debt managers to help clean up risks after the failure of thousands of peer-to-peer lending platforms, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Companies in Shanghai, Zhejiang and Shenzhen have submitted applications to set up local asset managers dealing with bad loans, especially those from online lending platforms, said ...

Bloomberg China’s overall credit growth surged in January, before the extended Lunar New Year holiday due to the coronavirus outbreak curtailed economic activity across much of the country. Aggregate financing increased 5.07 trillion yuan ($723 billion) last month, the highest since the current data series started in 2017. The median estimate was 4.2 trillion yuan. The stock of outstanding aggregate ...

Bloomberg Brigita, a director at one of China’s largest car dealers, is running out of options. Her firm’s 100 outlets have been closed for about a month because of the coronavirus, cash reserves are dwindling and banks are reluctant to extend deadlines on billions of yuan in debt coming due over the next few months. There are also other creditors ...

Bloomberg Argentina Economy Minister Martin Guzman and Kristalina Georgieva, managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), discussed plans for a “secure and orderly resolution” of Argentina’s debt situation, the IMF said. The conversation on the sidelines of the Group of 20 meeting in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, also touched on ways to secure more sustainable and inclusive growth for the ...

Bloomberg JPMorgan Chase & Co is planning to enter the UK consumer-banking market in the next few months, offering a range of savings and loan products under its Chase brand, Sky News reported, citing unidentified sources. The Wall Street stalwart has been in discussions with regulators about securing the necessary approvals to operate in UK personal banking, Sky said. The ...

Bloomberg The ousted chief executive of Danske Bank A/S, Thomas Borgen, has been personally targeted in an investor lawsuit arguing he withheld information about potential money laundering that subsequently destroyed the lender’s market value. Deminor, a Brussels-based law firm, said it has filed a legal complaint against Borgen on behalf of 155 institutional investors seeking damages of 358 million euros ...

Bloomberg UBS Group AG Chairman Axel Weber said markets are underpricing the risk that the coronavirus poses to the global economy. “There is going to be quite a bit of impact that is going to go beyond the first quarter and that is where fiscal response, providing businesses with some tax relievers, some emergency funding, that is going to be ...