Banking

Bloomberg A Swiss bank’s former chief executive officer has been sanctioned by the country’s financial regulator for insider trading in his wife’s name and what Finma called other “serious breaches of supervisory law.” The man executed the trades using his wife’s account at other lenders for several years, violating his bank’s internal directives, Finma said. The identities of the bank ...

Bloomberg Some of the world’s major central banks are teaming up to assess potentially developing their own digital currencies, acknowledging that their role is being challenged by new technologies and private sector initiatives such as Facebook Inc’s Libra. A group has been formed in order to “share experience as they assess the potential cases for central bank digital currency (CBDC) ...

Bloomberg Bank of England (BOE) governor Mark Carney warned of mounting risks to the financial sector and the economy from climate change, and urged the US to play bigger role. “Something which was largely on the periphery of finance has come into the mainstream,” Carney told Bloomberg Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait at the Bloomberg Climate Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “Transition risk ...

Bloomberg Malaysia’s central bank cut its benchmark interest rate in a surprise move on Wednesday, the first in Southeast Asia to do so this year as it seeks to support its economy amid lingering global uncertainty. Bank Negara Malaysia reduced the overnight policy rate to 2.75%, a 25 basis-point cut predicted by just two of the 26 economists surveyed by ...

Bloomberg UBS Group AG Chairman Axel Weber said his top priority for the next months is working to reduce a $5 billion French tax fine that’s prompted the bank to postpone a decision on future share buybacks until the second half of the year. The Swiss lender was slapped with the fine after a Paris court found it guilty of ...

Bloomberg Ukraine is stepping up plans to slash Europe’s highest benchmark borrowing costs. Inflation has plummeted to the lowest in almost six years after the hryvnia outshone all other currencies against the dollar in 2019. The more benign backdrop will be reflected in this month’s quarterly projections for interest rates, according to the central bank. “This forecast will be more ...

Bloomberg The International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) influence in Pakistan’s central bank got another boost with the appointment of a second senior official from the fund. Murtaza Syed was appointed as deputy governor at the State Bank of Pakistan for a three-year term, according to a finance ministry notification. Syed was previously deputy division chief in the IMF’s strategy, policy, and ...

Bloomberg The International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicted the world economy will strengthen in 2020, albeit at a slightly slower pace than previously anticipated amid threats related to trade and tensions in the Middle East. Global growth will accelerate to 3.3% from 2.9% in 2019, marking the first pickup in three years, the fund said. Both figures are down compared with ...

Bloomberg The Bank of Japan (BOJ) took a brighter view of the economy and left its main policy settings unchanged on Tuesday, offering a further indication that it is unlikely to add to its stimulus. As had been widely expected, the BOJ raised its growth projections for the first time in a year, thanks to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s $120 ...

Bloomberg The pound advanced after the UK’s employment rate hit a record high, weakening the case for an imminent interest-rate cut. Sterling rose against all its Group-of-10 peers as the UK labour market figures ended a run of weak economic data. Money markets trimmed bets that the Bank of England (BOE) will lower borrowing costs on January 30 to around ...