Banking

Bloomberg HDFC Bank Ltd., India’s biggest lender by market value, has picked Bank of America Corp. and Morgan Stanley to manage an initial public offering of its non-bank finance unit, people with knowledge of the matter said. The bank plans to sell the shares in HDB Financial Services Ltd. before March 31 in a deal that may raise about 100 ...

Bloomberg Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said the downside risks to the US economy have increased recently, reinforcing the case among policy makers for somewhat lower interest rates. “Crosscurrents have reem-erged, with apparent progress on trade turning to greater uncertainty and with incoming data raising renewed concerns about the strength of the global economy,” Powell told the Council on Foreign ...

Bloomberg Mario Draghi is once again testing the boundaries of the law in his efforts to lift the euro zone out of its economic malaise. When the European Central Bank president promised last week to add monetary stimulus if the outlook doesn’t improve, he said one option is to resume large-scale purchases of government bonds. He also said self-imposed limits ...

Bloomberg The Bank of Thailand left its benchmark interest rate unchanged for a fourth straight meeting, while at the same time downgrading its economic growth outlook and raising concerns about the strong currency. The Monetary Policy Committee voted unanimously to hold its key rate at 1.75 percent, the central bank said in a statement, in line with almost all of ...

Bloomberg Federal Reserve policy makers are discovering they likely need to shift into an even lower gear if they are to speed up the US economy. Chairman Jerome Powell and colleagues last week estimated that the so-called neutral interest rate — the level which neither stimulates nor restricts growth — now sits around 2.5 percent, down from 2.75 percent in ...

Bloomberg Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now expects the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates by 25 basis points in both July and September and isn’t ruling out the possibility of a bigger move of 50 basis points “if the news flow disappoints.” The need to get ahead of the bond market could be another reason to push Fed officials towards ...

Bloomberg Policy makers around the globe have been cool to the idea of Facebook Inc.’s planned Libra cryptocurrency. In Switzerland? They liked it so much, Facebook decided to set up shop there. Geneva is “excited” to work with Facebook, the canton’s economic development chief Pierre Maudet said last week after it emerged Facebook had picked the Swiss city as the ...

Bloomberg German banks may face about 610 million euros ($695 million) of costs after helping investors take improper advantage of a loophole to reduce taxes on dividends, according to the country’s regulator. About 60 lenders were directly involved in so-called cum-cum trades that allowed foreign investors to profit from tax breaks meant for Germany-based shareholders, a BaFin spokesman said, citing ...

Bloomberg The Bank of England (BOE) acknowledged rising concerns over a no deal Brexit as it kept interest rates on hold and cut its near-term economic growth forecast to zero. While officials, led by Governor Mark Carney, said they still see need for interest-rate hikes in coming years if their forecasts bear out, they also ackno-wledged that investors are tak- ...

Bloomberg Canadian inflation quickened in May on increases across the board, giving the Bank of Canada plenty of scope to hold interest rates steady. The consumer price index jumped 2.4 percent from a year earlier, compared with 2 percent in April and versus a median economist forecast of 2.1 percent, Statistics Canada said from Ottawa. It was the highest annual ...