Banking

Bloomberg The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) signalled it expects to lower interest rates this year. It is setting off fresh round of forecasts for deeper policy cuts as economists ponder where the lower bound is Down Under. JPMorgan Chase & Co. on Wednesday said it expects the central bank will have to cut its 1.5 percent benchmark 1 percentage ...

Bloomberg Bill Browder, the co-founder of Hermitage Capital Management, says the fallout of a money laundering saga involving the biggest mortgage bank in Sweden is “just starting.” During a tour of the Nordic region this week, Browder said he won’t drop his accusations against Swedbank AB even after the Swedish prosecutor declined to take up his complaint, citing a statute ...

Bloomberg Bank of Nova Scotia reported earnings that missed analysts’ estimates as higher provisions for loan losses tied mainly to takeovers hurt results in the fiscal second quarter. Canada’s third-largest lender by assets set aside more money for soured loans in its Canadian banking and international divisions, leading to a 63 percent jump in provisions across the bank. Provisions for ...

Bloomberg Hungary’s central bank kept its monetary policy unchanged despite an uptick in inflation and a weakening forint, pledging to review its setup in June when its updated forecasts are due. Central bankers, who held the benchmark rate at 0.9 percent and the overnight deposit rate at minus 0.05 percent, said financing costs would remain favourable but a cautious approach ...

Bloomberg India’s shadow banks are likely to see a further squeeze on their profit margins after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) signalled it will tighten liquidity requirements to bring them in line with the country’s more closely regulated commercial banks. Instead of providing a much-expected liquidity window to non-bank finance companies via the regular lenders, the central bank took ...

Bloomberg The People’s Bank of China is acting to increase the supply of short-term funding to banks after the seizure of a regional lender rattled domestic markets. China’s central bank injected a net amount of 150 billion yuan ($21.7 billion) through open-market operations, the most since the week ended March 8. Regulators announced that they will take control of Baoshang ...

Bloomberg Italy will seek a seat on the European Central Bank’s Executive Board and use it to push the institution to buy bonds to fund infrastructure projects, according to a senior lawmaker in the coalition government. European Union leaders are preparing to start negotiations over the next suite of top policy positions including a replacement for ECB President Mario Draghi. ...

Bloomberg Deutsche Bank AG is considering options including a capital increase as part of a wider overhaul it plans to unveil in the next two months, people with knowledge of the matter said. Tapping investors for fresh cash is the least favoured option because management is aware that it could trigger a backlash in light of Deutsche Bank’s low stock ...

Bloomberg The most hawkish member of Poland’s Monetary Policy Council said a single interest-rate increase is needed to ward off the rising threat of inflation. Central banker Kamil Zube-lewicz said that such tightening wouldn’t harm economy but ev-en he holds out little hope that the 10-member policy panel — which has kept the benchmark unchanged for seven years — will ...

Bloomberg China’s first government takeover of a bank in more than two decades has underscored the potential for increased stress at regional le- nders that piled into off-book financing in recent years. Regulators said that they would assume control of Ba-oshang Bank Co. for one year because of “serious” credit risks. The Inner Mongolia-based lender, once seen as a model ...