Banking

Bloomberg China’s central bank took its first concrete steps to cushion the economy and plunging markets from the blow of a spreading new virus, providing short-term funding to banks and cutting the interest rate it charges for the money. The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) added a net 150 billion yuan ($21.4 billion) of funds on Monday using 7-day and ...

Bloomberg Indonesia’s central bank is taking “bold” steps to guard the nation’s currency and bonds as mounting concerns about the economic impact of the novel coronavirus epidemic trigger a selloff by foreign investors. Bank Indonesia is intervening in the bond, currency and non-deliverable forwards markets to protect the rupiah, Nanang Hendarsah, the central bank’s executive director for monetary management, said ...

Bloomberg Credit Suisse targeted Greenpeace after the environmental group staged a dramatic protest at one of the bank’s events, according to newspaper Sonntagszeitung. After the group’s activists abseiled from the ceiling and unfurled a banner over the podium at the annual shareholder meeting in 2017, Credit Suisse got on Greenpeace’s e-mail distribution list of upcoming protests. The bank then set ...

Bloomberg The pound is back in the doldrums after reports that Prime Minister Boris Johnson will effectively threaten to walk away from negotiations with the European Union without a formal trade deal. Sterling fell more than 1% to lead losses among Group-of-10 currencies, wiping out last week’s advance. The EU’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier is also setting out his planned ...

Bloomberg Citigroup Inc slashed its price forecasts for commodities from oil to copper and iron ore as it said the impact of the coronavirus looks much worse than it initially thought. Oil came in for the most severe downgrades, with the bank cutting estimates for the first three quarters. Citi also reduced its first-quarter copper projection by almost a fifth, ...

Bloomberg Competition for ownership of Indian shadow bank Altico Capital India Ltd has revived with the re-entry of Cerberus Capital Management LP into the race. New York-based hedge fund Cerberus submitted a bid for ailing Altico last week, after getting an extension from an initial deadline in the previous week, said people familiar with the matter. The creditor-run debt restructuring ...

Bloomberg Chinese policymakers prepared to shore up financial markets, which are bracing for a sell-off when trading re-starts on Monday. The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) and other regulators announced a slew of targeted measures over the weekend aimed at calming financial markets and helping companies, banks and individuals hurt by the viral pneumonia outbreak. The central bank will supply ...

Bloomberg Malaysia can expect half of its banking assets to be Islamic by 2030 as the industry’s growth outpaces conventional banking, according to a lenders’ association. Loans that comply with the religion’s ban on interest is set to increase by 10% to 15% annually over the next five years, outpacing the 5% to 7% growth seen for non-Islamic loans, said ...

Bloomberg State Bank of India (SBI) posted its biggest ever quarterly profit as it wrote back provisions on bad loans and recoveries improved. Net income rose to 55.8 billion rupees ($782 million) in the three months ended in December from 39.6 billion rupees a year earlier. That’s broadly in line with the 58.7 billion rupee average of analysts’ estimates compiled ...

Bloomberg Bolivia’s central bank reiterated its commitment to the nation’s currency peg and said its $6.5 billion international reserve levels are adequate, in a statement rejecting comments made by a Fitch Ratings analyst to Bloomberg News earlier this week. The nation’s foreign currency reserves “are at levels that are solid for covering internal and external payments in foreign currency under ...