Bloomberg Between 2009 and 2015, Mihhail Murnikov spent his days handling as many transactions as he could at the non-resident unit of Danske Bank in Estonia. Roughly a year after Danske admitted that those transactions were part of a $220 billion money laundering scandal, prosecutors from Tallinn to Washington are still trying to get to the bottom of what really ...
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Former Credit Suisse CEO calls negative rates ‘crazy’
Bloomberg Oswald Gruebel, who led both of Switzerland’s two biggest banks during his career, criticised negative interest rates and argued they’d lead to a further decline of the country’s financial sector. “Negative interest rates are crazy. That means money is not worth anything anymore,†Gruebel said in an interview with Swiss newspaper NZZ am Sonntag. “As long as we have ...
Read More »$63b of zombie buildings sound alarm for Indian banks
Bloomberg Ashish Shah is caught in the middle of India’s latest financial crisis. As chief operating officer of Radius Developers, he’s struggling to fund construction of apartment complexes because of a liquidity crunch in the nation’s bloated shadow-banking sector. “Real estate is a sitting duck,†said Shah. “The timing is very crucial as the slowdown has hit the real estate ...
Read More »RBI vows to ease as ‘long as necessary’ after 5th rate cut
Bloomberg India’s central bank Governor Shaktikanta Das pledged further monetary policy easing if needed after reducing interest rates for a fifth time to boost a flailing economy. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) lowered its benchmark repurchase rate by 25 basis points to 5.15 percent, in line with the forecasts of a majority of economists surveyed by Bloomberg. Echoing Mario ...
Read More »Yes Bank CEO expects to raise up to $1.2bn
Bloomberg Yes Bank Ltd Chief Executive Officer Ravneet Gill said he expects to complete raising as much as $1.2 billion “much sooner than the market expects,†after sales of pledged shares eliminated an overhang on the lender’s stock. Gill reiterated in an interview his target of selling $1 billion to $1.2 billion of new shares to private equity investors, technology ...
Read More »Brexit complicates EU money-laundering fight
Bloomberg The UK’s withdrawal from the European Union is complicating the bloc’s fight against money laundering in the financial system, according to EU authorities. Firms relocating from Britain could overwhelm the national bodies that supervise anti-money laundering systems, the three EU financial regulators said in a joint report. A no-deal Brexit would make things even more difficult by disrupting the ...
Read More »Vista mulls sale of stake in $10bn fintech giant
Bloomberg Vista Equity Partners is considering the potential sale of a stake in Finastra in a deal that could value the financial technology company at more than $10 billion including debt, people familiar with the matter said. Billionaire Robert F Smith’s buyout firm is working with Goldman Sachs Group Inc to gauge interest from potential buyers, according to the people, ...
Read More »Colombia isn’t mulling FX intervention: Banker
Bloomberg Colombia’s central bank isn’t discussing taking measures to ease declines in the peso, even as the currency hit a record-low earlier this week, according to one member of the monetary policy committee. The peso has plunged 7.5 percent in the past three months, making it the worst performing emerging market currency after the Argentine peso, amid slowing global growth, ...
Read More »Coinbase resumes UK fast payments post Barclays breakdown
Bloomberg US cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase Inc has a new banking partner in Britain that will provide real-time payments for customers, three months after losing the service when it broke with Barclays Plc. The San Francisco-based firm, which lost its Barclays account in July, is now a client of ClearBank, a lender that started operations in 2017, according to a person ...
Read More »ECB begins transition of benchmark ‘interest rate’
Bloomberg The European Central Bank (ECB) began its official transition to a new benchmark short-term interest rate on Wednesday, as global regulators move away from tainted Libor gauges. The new rate, known as ESTR, which reflects overnight borrowing costs of banks in the monetary bloc, fixed at -0.549 percent for October 1, the central bank said on its website. The ...
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