Banking

Bloomberg US-China trade tensions didn’t stop Standard Chartered Plc from delivering results that beat expectations. Adjusted pretax profit was $2.61 billion in the first half, the bank reported, higher than the company-compiled $2.50 billion estimate. Standard Chartered said it remains confident of a full-year return on tangible equity greater than 10 percent in 2021. “Trade protectionism is bad for the ...

Bloomberg Mark Carney won’t be able to play the saviour if the UK leaves the European Union with no deal at the end of October. The Bank of England (BOE) governor said that the institution can’t necessarily deliver a growth-boosting package in the event of Brexit without a transition. In a week when the pound capped its worst monthly performance ...

Bloomberg Banca Monte deiPaschi di Siena SpA had another tough quarter for earnings, showing how far the state-rescued Italian lender has to go before it can re-emerge as a private company. Second-quarter net income fell 35 percent to 65.3 million euros ($72 million) from a year earlier hurt by lower income from lending and fees, the Siena-based bank said. Monte ...

Bloomberg The building blocks for a sustained rally in emerging-market bonds are in place as their central banks embark on a rate-cutting cycle, according to Goldman Sachs Asset Management. Last month’s easing by South Korea, Indonesia and South Africa is a foretaste of things to come as policy makers step up efforts to bolster growth, said Angus Bell, a senior ...

Bloomberg Credit Agricole SA followed competitor SocieteGenerale SA in strengthening its capital buffers, even though slower investment banking activity weighed on second-quarter earnings. Profit at the large clients business that houses the securities unit fell 20 percent after the bank saw a continued drop in margins in a sluggish market. A decline in overall net income was in line with ...

Bloomberg Traders at Credit Suisse Group AG and BNP Paribas SA broke some of the gloom in European banking, beating most of their Wall Street peers in the second quarter of 2019. The results represent a rare bright spot for institutions contending with a deteriorating economy and huge job cuts, including the 18,000 positions that Deutsche Bank AG expe-cts to ...

Bloomberg The Federal Reserve’s uni-que structure helps preserve monetary policy independence, according to a new academic study that comes at a time of heightened tensions between the White House and the central bank. Cleveland Fed economist Edward Prescott and Rutgers University economics professor Michael Bordo argue the Fed’s deliberately decentralised design — with 12 regional banks around the country augmenting ...

Bloomberg When Nicko Widjaja was hired to run the venture capital arm of Indonesia’s biggest telecommunication services provider in 2015, corporate venture capital investing had a reputation for being slow, bureaucratic and generating lackluster returns. But in four years, he has made it work. The first venture fund of state-owned PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia, called MDI Ventures, has returned 40 percent ...

Bloomberg While corporate America’s profit engine is about to cool, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. says a Federal Reserve interest-rate cut will continue to boost stock prices this year. The bank cut 2019 earnings estimates for the S&P 500 Index to $167 a share from $173, citing an economic slowdown, lower oil prices and weak margins, according to a note from ...

Bloomberg Bank of America Corp. (BofA) said it will end a payments joint venture with First Data Corp. next June when a contract between the two firms expires. The firms will continue to provide delivery of products and services for existing clients through at least June 2023, but will otherwise pursue in-dependent merchant-services strategies next year, Bank of America said in ...