Banking

Bloomberg Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell pushed back against perceptions that the US economy was tilting into a recession, while leaving the door open to further interest-rate cuts to keep the country’s record economic expansion on track. Speaking in Zurich, Powell said consumer spending and support from monetary policy should help deliver economic growth between 2 percent and 2.5 percent ...

Bloomberg Ping An Insurance (Group) Co’s financial technology unit is considering an application for one of Singapore’s new digital banking licenses, according to a person familiar with the matter. OneConnect is looking to secure a wholesale license which would allow it to provide banking services to small and medium-sized businesses on the island, said the person, who requested anonymity because ...

Bloomberg Sugarfina Inc, the chain of luxury candy shops backed by some of the biggest names in banking and entertainment, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection as mall-based stores struggle to compete. Posh candies like Champagne gummy bears for $8.50 and bourbon-and-toffee chocolate bars at $9.50 are part of Sugarfina’s lineup. The company listed assets and liabilities of up to ...

Bloomberg The slide in Indian bonds last month on concern about potential monetary stimulus has one bond veteran smelling an opportunity. The government’s scope to deliver a big package to revive the economy is limited despite the $24 billion windfall from the central bank, while the prospect of additional interest-rate cuts will drive yields lower, Neeraj Gambhir, president and head ...

Bloomberg Half of Britons say that the UK’s departure from the European Union has pushed up their expectations for price growth, a Bank of England (BOE) survey showed. Inflation expectations for the coming year stood at 3.3 percent in August, the BOE said, the highest since 2013 and up from 3.1 percent in May. Consumers are slightly more optimistic about ...

Bloomberg A prolonged shadow-banking crisis and hurdles in bankruptcy rules are set to keep India atop the world’s worst bad-debt pile, even as Italy, which held the title previously, quickens the clean-up of its lenders. Moody’s Investors Service to Credit Suisse Group AG warned that more loans may sour in the Asian nation’s banking system. More than 2.4 percent of ...

Bloomberg Goldman Sachs Group Inc is making another bet on a Latin American financial-technology startup, providing a secured credit facility of as much as $100 million to Mexico’s Konfio. The transaction will help Konfio, which provides unsecured working capital to small and midsize companies, lend about $250 million in the next 12 months, according to David Arana, the fintech’s chief ...

Bloomberg Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has told large US banks including Goldman Sachs Group Inc and American Express Co they should do more to help black- and women-owned community banks win federal contracts. Mnuchin in a letter asked some of the country’s biggest banks to participate in the Financial Agent Mentor-Protege Program, in which large lenders counsel their smaller rivals ...

Bloomberg Ghana’s central bank has additional space to loosen policy thanks to the global move toward lower interest rates, as long as inflation slows, according to Governor Ernest Addison. “We are on a good disinflation path,” Addison said in an interview with Bloomberg TV at the World Economic Forum on Africa in Cape Town. “Inflation has continued to come down ...

Bloomberg The UK Labour Party would seek to ban excessive bonuses for bankers if it came to power, unless the financial industry takes steps to curb excessive payments. John McDonnell, Labour’s Treasury spokesman, told the Financial Times he wanted to issue a warning to the finance industry that he would “take action” if it “hasn’t learnt its lesson.” A spokesman ...