Banking

Bloomberg The battered euro is finishing the year strongly and setting up the case for better performance next year. The common currency rose to its strongest level versus the dollar since August and cross-currency basis swaps — a measure of demand for funding purposes — climbed to the highest on record, Bloomberg Generic Prices show. While both moves mirrored a ...

Bloomberg China’s central bank will increase the supply of cheap funding to banks by cutting the amount of cash they need to hold as reserves, a move aimed at putting a floor under economic growth in 2020. The required reserve ratio for commercial lenders will be lowered by 50 basis points from Jan. 6, unleashing about 800 billion yuan ($115 ...

Bloomberg Grab Holdings Inc is partnering with Singapore Telecommunications Ltd to apply for a full digital banking license, jumping aboard a Singapore government initiative to attract technology firms into its financial sector. A Grab entity will own a 60% stake in the consortium that will apply for the bank license in Singapore, while the telco known as Singtel will hold ...

Bloomberg European Central Bank (ECB) President Christine Lagarde is attempting an endeavour possibly as daunting as reigniting inflation in the euro area: Learning German. It’s understandable that the region’s new monetary chief, an internationally minded Frenchwoman now based at the ECB’s headquarters in Frankfurt, might want to communicate in the first language of her latest home. Not only is German ...

Bloomberg The Taiwan dollar has erased gains with remarkable regularity in afternoon trading over the past weeks, but the predictable moves remain off-limits to traders. The local currency rose as much as 0.6% on Monday before ending the session up 0.2% at 30.135 versus the greenback. Recent late-session paring had spurred speculation that the central bank is taking a more ...

Bloomberg Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA sold about 1.8 billion euros ($2 billion) of troubled loans, reaching its goal for reducing risk two years early. About 1.6 billion euros of unsecured non-performing loans were sold to Illimity Bank SpA, Monte Paschi said in a statement on Monday. Separately, it sold 0.2 billion euros of unlikely to pay loans, ...

Bloomberg Lime Asset Management Co, the firm at the centre of a scandal that sparked unprecedented withdrawals from South Korean hedge funds, now faces an investigation into its investment in a troubled US fund. A senior official at the Financial Supervisory Service said South Korea’s top financial watchdog will ask prosecutors to probe Lime’s investment in funds run by International ...

Bloomberg China’s local government financing vehicles are seen as the top investment among the nation’s corporate bonds next year as state backing limits the risk of default, a survey showed. Local governments’ financing vehicles, which now have 8.4 trillion yuan ($1.2 trillion) outstanding, have long had a shadow over them because many lack sustainable revenues to make debt payments, and ...

Bloomberg China’s economic performance improved in December for the first time in eight months, according to a group of earliest-available indicators compiled by Bloomberg. Production in the world’s second-largest economy accelerated as domestic demand stabilised, and market sentiment turned around on the prospect of a near-term trade deal with the US. The reading is the latest sign that Chinese economy ...

Bloomberg Fast Retailing Co Chief Executive Officer Tadashi Yanai is leaving SoftBank Group Corp’s board after more than 18 years as one of the few directors with the heft to challenge Masayoshi Son. Yanai, Japan’s richest man, will step down on December 31, according to a SoftBank statement. He is leaving the post to focus on running his own business, ...