Banking

Bloomberg Ghana has pumped 800 million cedis ($150 million) into a special purpose vehicle created to bail out banks that don’t have enough capital, according to four people with knowledge of the matter. Ghana Amalgamated Trust (GAT) will be getting the funds from the finance ministry after dropping a plan to raise the money through a bond sale, said the ...

Bloomberg A key Canadian interest rate used by lenders to determine who can qualify for a mortgage has dropped for the first time in almost three years, potentially giving the country’s housing market a near-term boost. The Bank of Canada lowered its 5-year conventional mortgage rate to 5.19 percent, from 5.34 percent, where it had been since May 2018. It’s ...

Bloomberg The next member of the European Central Bank’s Governing Council from Latvia will be selected through an open competition if Latvian Prime Minister Krisjanis Karins gets his way. The premier is looking for a clean break for the monetary authority, which was tainted by a bribery scandal during the current governor’s 18 years at the helm, he said. Karins ...

Bloomberg Former Reserve Bank of India governor Raghuram Rajan has indicated the political challenges posed by Brexit were the reasons he didn’t apply to head up the Bank of England. In an interview with the BBC, Rajan confirmed he hadn’t sought the position and cited the fact that central banking “has become much more political in recent times” as an ...

Bloomberg Australia’s banking regulator is set for a major overhaul after a government-commissioned review found it had a “culture of conformity” and needed to become more forceful. In a scathing 146-page report released on Wednesday, the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) was found to be slow to act, tentative in addressing issues that don’t entail traditional financial risks, and have ...

Bloomberg Svenska Handelsbanken AB, one of Sweden’s biggest banks, is taking a long, hard look at its business model to see which corners it can ax so that costs stop growing faster than income. Carina Akerstrom, who took over as chief executive officer in March, said she’s “not at all” happy with the way in which Handelsbanken’s costs are developing. ...

Bloomberg Cash-strapped Dewan Housing Finance Corp is in discussions with its bondholders to revamp its debt as the Indian mortgage lender tries to shore up its financials after posting its first quarterly loss in more than a decade. In a meeting with its rupee bondholders, Dewan Housing discussed an inter-creditor agreement that the consortium of bankers has agreed to enter ...

Bloomberg The Bank of England’s balance sheet should fall to around half its current size when quantitative easing (QE) is finally unwound, according to the executive director for markets. While there’s no sign that the bond-purchase programme will be pared back any time soon, a new BOE Discussion Paper on quantitative tightening suggests that the “steady state” balance sheet should ...

Bloomberg Ghana stocks headed for the lowest in 21 months as investors sold shares to free up cash as they contend with the fallout from banking reforms in the West African nation. The Ghana Stock Exchange Composite Index retreated 1.5 percent in Accra on Wednesday, heading for the lowest close since October 2017. Ghana’s banking industry regulator completed a clean-up ...

Bloomberg Swedbank AB acknowledged it will no longer be able to live up to its goal of paying out one of the highest dividend ratios in the Nordic finance industry. Sweden’s oldest bank, which is dealing with the fallout of a money laundering scandal that has left it Europe’s worst performing financial stock this year, said it will now target ...