Banking

Bloomberg Norway’s central bank said it will probably raise interest rates in June, three months after the last increase, as policy makers break with a global trend and commit to tightening. The economy of Western Europe’s biggest oil exporter is nearing full capacity as its labour market grows tighter and inflation creeps above Norges Bank’s target. But with central bankers ...

Bloomberg UniCredit SpA Chief Executive Officer Jean Pierre Mustier accelerated a long-running cleanup and bore down on costs as the Italian bank prepares to move from a strategy of recovery to growth. Italy’s biggest bank reduced operating expenses by 4.2 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier and set aside less money for bad loans. That helped the ...

Bloomberg Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Richard Clarida pushed back against speculation in financial markets the central bank will cut interest rates to boost softening inflation up to its 2 percent target. “I don’t think we’re at that place now,” Clarida said in an interview with Bloomberg Television’s Michael McKee in Washington. “We think the policy in place now will get ...

Bloomberg The appointment of the next European Central Bank (ECB) head could potentially be delayed until just weeks before President Mario Draghi’s term expires amid a swathe of top European Union vacancies. That’s one of the scenarios being discussed among EU diplomats, according to a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified. The complexity of upcoming ...

Bloomberg New Zealand’s central bank cut interest rates to a fresh record low and hinted at the chance of a further reduction if necessary, becoming the first among developed-world economies to ease policy this cycle. Governor Adrian Orr and his newly-formed Monetary Policy Committee decided that recent unexpected weakness in inflation and hiring warranted the Reserve Bank’s first rate cut ...

Bloomberg Banks including JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Citigroup Inc. are set to be fined imminently by the European Union over collusion on foreign-exchange trading, according to two people with knowledge of the probe. The European Commission may announce fines as soon as this week as part of a settlement that sees the lenders get reduced penalties for agreeing not ...

Bloomberg Societe Generale SA failed to halt the slide in its investment bank in a quarter where the key equities business and stronger capital levels were bright spots for Chief Executive Officer Frederic Oudea. Profit at the unit that houses the trading operations declined 16 percent in what’s usually its strongest period. While earnings were dragged down by fixed-income trading, ...

Bloomberg The Federal Reserve escalated its warnings about the perils of risky borrowing by businesses, saying firms with the worst credit profiles are the ones taking on more and more debt. The Fed also left a question unanswered: Is it going to do anything about it? The US central bank’s latest financial stability report said leveraged-lending issuance grew 20 percent ...

Bloomberg More US consumers are defaulting on their credit cards, but banks may be holding onto the riskiest loans instead of passing them off to investors, according to a report from Barclays Plc. The credit card loans that banks bundle into bonds and sell to investors are outperforming the loans that lenders have held onto, Barclays analyst Alin Florea wrote ...

Bloomberg Singapore is discussing the possibility of allowing virtual banks to operate in the city state, the Monetary Authority of Singapore said on Tuesday. “MAS is studying whether to admit such digital-only banks with non-bank parentage,” the financial regulator said in an emailed reply to questions from Bloomberg News. “We have been engaging relevant stakeholders to ascertain the unique value ...