Banking

Bloomberg Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp (OCBC) aims to expand its lending to environmentally-friendly projects after this year building the biggest exposure to green loans among its Southeast Asian peers. The bank has built a team of five to focus on sustainable financing after foraying into green loans last year and is looking to add bankers, said Mike Ng, the Singapore bank’s ...

Bloomberg European Central Bank (ECB) officials must bear in mind their previous premature interest-rate hikes and the market turmoil around the US Federal Reserve’s tapering of bond purchases when they eventually start to tighten monetary policy, Bank of Finland Governor Olli Rehn warned. “The core inflation rate remains low and clearly below the ECB’s price-stability target,” Rehn wrote in a ...

Bloomberg HSBC Holdings Plc may partially exit stock trading in some developed Western markets as part of a cost-cutting drive by Noel Quinn, the interim chief executive who wants the top job on a permanent basis. Equities sales and trading units in France, Germany, US and the UK are likely to be scaled back, according to people familiar with the ...

Bloomberg Japan has various ways to deploy fiscal stimulus if economic conditions warrant such action, according to Finance Minister Taro Aso. The nation’s economic fundamentals remain stable for now, but the government continues to use fiscal stimulus in a nimble manner, Aso said at a press conference in Washington, where the Group of 20 nations’ finance ministers and central bank ...

Bloomberg The dollar’s three-week slump may turn into further weakness through early next year, as potential progress on US-China trade talks and Brexit along with softer domestic economic data undermine the currency’s haven status, said Scotiabank’s Shaun Osborne. The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index is down about 2% from a two-year high on October 01, amid its longest weekly losing streak ...

Bloomberg People’s Bank of China (PBOC) Governor Yi Gang said the yuan is at an “appropriate level” and cross-border capital flows have stayed balanced since the currency weakened past 7 per dollar in early August. “Depreciation since the beginning of August has been driven and determined by market forces and reflects shifts in market dynamics,” and the currency has been ...

Bloomberg Mongolia has been included on a list of countries monitored by an international agency that polices anti-money laundering activities and terrorism financing. Joining Mongolia as additions on the Financial Action Task Force’s watch list were Iceland and Zimbabwe, according to a FATF statement released by email from Paris. “Each jurisdiction has developed an action plan with the FATF to ...

Bloomberg Developing some form of synthetic central bank digital currency is “worth looking at,” according to Bank of England (BOE) deputy governor Dave Ramsden. The UK central bank is “very focussed” on what should be done to provide public infrastructure to encourage private innovation, said Ramsden, who oversees payments and fintech. Creating a digital currency with other central banks is ...

Bloomberg Interest rate cuts are supporting Australia’s economy and housing market, Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe said. “The economy has been through a very soft patch over the past year but it is actually gradually improving, the lower interest rates are working,” Lowe said during a panel event at the International Monetary Fund’s annual meetings in Washington. Highlighting an upswing ...

Bloomberg Incoming European Central Bank (ECB) President Christine Lagarde said central banks best operate in a regime of independence and President Donald Trump shouldn’t interfere with the US Federal Reserve. “Market stability should not be the subject of a tweet here or a tweet there,” Lagarde said in an interview with CBS ‘60 Minutes’ correspondent John Dickerson. It requires thought ...