Banking

Bloomberg Japanese banks have spent more than three years trying to flee negative interest rates at home by ramping up lending abroad. Now their escape routes are closing. Declining global rates are buffeting the country’s three largest lenders as they prepare to post fiscal first-quarter results next week. And with central banks around the world now in monetary easing mode, ...

Bloomberg Nigeria is facing the risk of never recovering about 5.5 trillion naira ($15 billion) of bad loans taken over during a banking crisis more than a decade ago. The money is almost 80 percent of the West African nation’s revenue target for 2019 and 62 percent of planned spending by president Muhammadu Buhari, amounting to 8.9 trillion naira. That ...

Bloomberg Bank of Jinzhou Co said it is in talks to introduce strategic investors after a report that China’s financial regulators are seeking to resolve its liquidity problems pushed down the lender’s dollar-denominated debt. Officials including those from the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) and China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission recently held a meeting with financial institutions in Bank ...

Bloomberg When Christine Lagarde chairs her first meeting as European Central Bank (ECB) president in November, she might wonder which of her colleagues don’t really want her there. As the Governing Council signed off on the decision by governments to appoint the former International Monetary Fund chief, not all of the 21 voting members backed her, according to two euro-zone central ...

Bloomberg Hong Kong has appointed a veteran central banker as the next chief executive of its monetary authority, signalling continuity remains the priority as the city faces ongoing political turmoil. While the social unrest over the government’s botched extradition bill won’t be Eddie Yue’s responsibility, and may even have dissipated by the time he takes office in October, maintaining the ...

Bloomberg The Bank of Russia reduced interest rates for a second time this year and signalled more cuts to come, as inflation and economic growth slow. The key rate was cut to 7.25 percent from 7.50 percent, according to a statement. The move was forecast by all but one of the 40 economists polled in a Bloomberg survey, with the ...

Bloomberg Berkshire Hathaway’s stake in Bank of America (BofA) crept above 10 percent, crossing a threshold that’s caused the conglomerate headaches in the past, as the bank bought back its own stock. Berkshire said in a regulatory filing that it owned 950 million shares in the lender, a holding that put it above a 10 percent ownership stake. The total ...

Bloomberg A day after the first doubts emerged about Deutsche Bank’s fresh turnaround plan, the European Central Bank (ECB) stepped in to allay at least some of them. The ECB said it will study options to mitigate the punitive effect of negative interest rates on euro area banks, pushing Deutsche Bank’s stock to the highest in almost three months. The ...

Bloomberg Nedbank Group Ltd is in talks with about 1,500 employees over potential job cuts at the South African lender’s retail and business-banking division to cope with a struggling economy and increased competition. The company forecasts that “between 50 and 100 employees are at risk of not being placed in a role,” Johannesburg-based Nedbank said in an emailed response to ...

Bloomberg China plans to start regulating large conglomerates that may pose systemic risks to the nation’s financial sector. Certain non-financial firms or individuals with businesses that straddle at least two financial industries will be classified as “financial holding companies” and will need licenses from the People’s Bank of China to operate, the regulator said in proposals. If adopted, the rules ...