Banking

Bloomberg At Wells Fargo & Co.’s town hall meetings, executives have fielded countless questions from employees about efforts to resolve scandals that erupted almost three years ago. One looming topic hasn’t come up recently: Who will run the bank? While the abrupt exit of Chief Executive Officer Tim Sloan in March kicked off a succession hunt that’s captivated the industry, …

Bloomberg Norway’s $1 trillion wealth fund ended a long-running bet on higher interest rates as market turmoil drove a quarter of its massive bond portfolio into yields below zero. After presenting second-quarter earnings in Oslo on Wednesday, Norges Bank Investment Management’s Deputy Chief Executive Officer Trond Grande said the fund is now no longer short duration compared to its benchmark, …

Bloomberg Goldman Sachs Group Inc. economists predict Federal Reserve officials will cut interest rates at each of their next two meetings — in part because of a desire to keep bond markets calm. Having lowered their benchmark rate by 25 basis points to 2-2.25% in July, policy makers will execute reductions of the same size in September and October with …

Bloomberg The UK is considering delaying two key announcements in the latest sign that Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government is on an election footing. Chancellor of the Exchequer Sajid Javid may wait to name a successor to Bank of England (BOE) Governor Mark Carney until after Britain’s planned October 31 departure from the European Union. Javid may also have to …

Bloomberg Bank of America Corp. (BofA) has hired investment banker Samardh Kumar from Citigroup Inc. to co-head a recently formed group focused on emerging private companies. Kumar, a managing director, will lead the emerging growth and regional coverage group alongside New York-based banker Brendan Hanley, who was appointed to the role in July, according to an internal company memo. Kumar …

Bloomberg Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp. (OCBC) is in talks with companies including Singapore Telecommunications Ltd. about seeking one of the city-state’s planned virtual bank licenses, according to people familiar with the matter. Singapore’s second-largest bank would take a minority stake in any virtual-banking joint venture and sees it as a way to tap new customers and markets. For example, Singtel might …

Bloomberg The global hunt for yield is a boon for Chinese banks raising capital via perpetual bonds. Agricultural Bank of China Ltd. sold 85 billion yuan ($12 billion) of perpetual bonds last week at a coupon of 4.39%, the lowest level since lenders first started selling the debt instruments in January. Total sales of the bonds, which lack a maturity …

Bloomberg Guaranty Trust Bank Plc will consider acquisitions outside its home market as Nigeria’s biggest lender by market value seeks to expand on the rest of the continent. The Nigerian multinational financial institution, which already has offices in 10 countries outside Nigeria, is looking to East Africa for growth, Chief Executive Officer Segun Agbaje said on a call with investors …

Bloomberg A senior official at the European Central Bank (ECB) warned that banks embracing external data storage and other digital technology need to face an uncomfortable truth: there’s a good chance they’ll get hacked. “There will be accidents, especially in the cloud,” Korbinian Ibel, a director general at the ECB’s supervisory arm, said in an interview. “It’s not that clouds …

Bloomberg The Indian rupee’s outperformance against more export-dependent currencies such as the Korean won has likely come to an end, with JPMorgan Chase & Co. seeing risks shifting to the downside. While JPMorgan had favoured the rupee since the US-China trade war took a turn for the worse in May, it now expects the currency to show higher beta to …