Banking

Bloomberg Most Germans live by the credo that saving is a virtue, but the European Central Bank’s (ECB) negative interest rates risk making a mockery of the national obsession, prompting politicians to seek ways to insulate thrifty citizens and keep the burden on the country’s beleaguered banks. Finance Minister Olaf Scholz says he’ll look into whether it’s possible to prevent ...

Bloomberg Never before have interest rates in the world’s biggest covered-bond market been this low. And rarely has investor demand for the debt been so high. Pacific Investment Management Co. (Pimco) is among investors embracing Danish mortgage-backed covered bonds, even as negative interest rates mean investors face built-in losses on some bonds. Data provided by Danske Bank show issuers are ...

Bloomberg European Central Bank (ECB) officials expressed concern at their latest policy meeting that some observers doubted their ability to restore price stability, prompting the Governing Council to plan for potential fresh monetary stimulus. Council members broadly agreed that a downward trend in inflation expectations was a cause for concern, and that the euro area’s economic slowdown was likely to ...

Bloomberg Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) is seeing an uptick in bad loans, providing validation to short-seller concerns that credit conditions are worsening. Investors and analysts have been watching for signs of deteriorating loans since short sellers earlier this year said that CIBC and other banks are ill-prepared for worsening credit conditions. CIBC’s soured-loan provisions totaled C$291 million ($219 ...

Bloomberg HSBC Holdings Plc cut about 10 banking jobs in Japan and Australia, eliminating the merger advisory teams based in those countries. The London-based bank will instead serve clients out of Hong Kong, Singapore and Southeast Asia, the person said, asking not to be identified because the matter is private. The debt capital markets group and sector teams were largely ...

Bloomberg Amid the astonishing recovery this year by most of the world’s biggest cryptocurrencies, one stands out. The token known as XRP has tumbled about 20%, while eight of the other 10 biggest coins are posting outsized gains. Even after losing about $3 billion in market capitalisation in 2019, XRP remains the third-largest digital asset after Bitcoin and Ethereum. Many ...

Bloomberg Deutsche Bank AG executives were outraged. They had just missed out on a major deal with the Russian government and wanted answers. “We must use whatever tactic and political pressure to avoid this embarrassment,” a senior banker in London wrote in an email to the firm’s top executive in Russia. “DB not participating is a slap in our face.” ...

Bloomberg A collapse of Brexit talks resulting in the UK leaving the European Union without a transition agreement would likely prompt the Bank of England to loosen monetary policy, Governor Mark Carney said. While the Monetary Policy Committee’s reaction would depend on how demand, supply and exchange rate are hit, “the appropriate policy path would be more likely to ease ...

Bloomberg Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) posted fiscal third-quarter earnings that missed analysts’ estimates, hurt by a slowdown in the company’s capital-markets division. Canada’s largest lender by assets had C$653 million ($491 million) in profit from RBC Capital Markets, a 6.4% decline, the result of lower trading revenue and a drop in investment-banking fees, according to a statement Wednesday. Earnings from ...

Bloomberg Sweden is stuck in negative interest rates. That’s the view of fixed-income giant Pacific Investment Management Co, which predicts that Sweden’s central bank will need to leave its benchmark rate at minus 0.25% through 2020. Sweden’s central bank is struggling to exit more than four years of negative rates. A plan to raise rates to zero again towards end ...