Banking

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 ...

Bloomberg Online-only bank Monzo has closed a new funding round doubling the startup’s valuation to more than $2.5 billion, making it one of the UK’s most highly valued fintech companies. Monzo last raised funding late last year at a valuation of $1.25 billion. In this new round, the company will bring in 113 million pounds ($143 million) of fresh capital, ...

Bloomberg President Donald Trump denied that he’d threatened to demote Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell but said he’d “be able to do that if I wanted.” The president repeated his criticism of Powell’s actions as Fed chief in an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “I’m not happy with his actions,” Trump said of Powell. “No, I don’t think he’s ...

Bloomberg The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) will lose one of its most outspoken officials, raising further questions about the independence of the central bank six months after the governor resigned under a cloud. Deputy Governor Viral Acharya has asked to leave the central bank, citing “unavoidable personal circumstances,” the RBI said in a statement on Monday. His resignation request, ...

Bloomberg Natixis SA went into crisis-fighting mode to stem a wave of outflows from its H2O Asset Management unit, selling part of its non-rated private bonds and marking down the balance in order to remove incentives for investors to pull even more. The move cuts the aggregate market value of the bonds, which were issued by companies linked to financier ...