Banking

Bloomberg Shares in Metro Bank Plc fell more than 9% to a fresh record low despite the British lender’s assurances that its 350 million-pound ($455 million) share sale to repair its finances was well advanced. Metro has started “final discussions with existing shareholders and new investors, and the feedback continues to be positive,” the firm said in a statement, confirming ...

Bloomberg To help pull off the biggest media deal of the year, JPMorgan Chase & Co. embraced a Wall Street practice that fell out of favor after the financial crisis. The largest US bank agreed to take a $1 billion equity stake using its own money. The check helped Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc. amass the cash it needed for a ...

Bloomberg A posse of Federal Reserve policy makers met with skepticism when they described ways to potentially improve their management of the economy. Participants at a Hoover Institution monetary conference questioned whether the central bankers have the will or the way to implement the fresh strategies they outlined, including average inflation targeting. The experts also voiced concern that the US ...

Bloomberg India’s biggest investors in shadow bank debt are getting cold feet, spelling more trouble for the hard-hit sector. Mutual fund investments in commercial paper and bonds that mature within 90 days dropped to 3.24 trillion rupees ($46.4 billion) at the end of March, the lowest in six quarters, data from the securities regulator show. The fallout from shock defaults ...

Bloomberg The Philippine central bank cut its benchmark interest rate and will consider easing the reserve ratio for lenders next week to boost economic growth from a four-year low. Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas lowered the overnight borrowing rate by 25 basis points to 4.5%, the first reduction since an operational adjustment to the rate in 2016. The Philippines joins Malaysia ...

Bloomberg Brazil held its benchmark interest rate at a record low and signaled that a period of weaker-than-expected growth is still insufficient for reduced borrowing costs. The bank’s board, led by its President Roberto Campos Neto, voted unanimously to keep the Selic rate unchanged at 6.50 percent. The monetary authority has held borrowing costs steady for roughly a year. In ...

Bloomberg Danske Bank A/S is turning into a case study for European regulators, legislators and bankers to rethink fundamental assumptions about how the finance industry should operate. First up is the principle that bank clients should be protected by secrecy laws. The sheer scale of the Danske money-laundering scandal means those rules may now get a review. The financial regulator ...

Bloomberg The Federal Reserve probably will be more inclined to cut interest rates now that President Donald Trump has followed through on his threat to increase tariffs on US imports from China. But it won’t rush into doing so. While the higher levies will put upward pressure on inflation by raising import prices, the central bank will likely be more ...

Bloomberg Tencent Holdings Ltd., Ant Financial, Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd. and Xiaomi Corp. are among companies to win licenses to create virtual lenders in Hong Kong, bringing major players into the race to shake up the city’s traditional banking sector. Tencent has teamed up with ICBC’s local unit and Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Ltd., according to ...

Bloomberg A bond market as old as capitalism itself has emerged as the latest proving ground for cryptocurrencies. A unit of Societe Generale SA sold 100 million euros ($112 million) of covered bonds — debt backed by mortgages — in the form of digital tokens with the French bank as the only buyer. The idea of last month’s pilot issue ...