Banking

Bloomberg Two Federal Reserve officials laid out the case for a possible interest-rate cut just days after Chairman Jerome Powell said there was no reason to move in either direction. Two other US central bankers sounded more comfortable with the current policy stance. St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank President James Bullard and Chicago Fed President Charles Evans, both policy voters ...

Bloomberg Pakistan’s government removed the governor of the central bank and the head of the tax authority amid the nation’s bailout negotiations with the International Monetary Fund. Tariq Bajwa, chief of the State Bank of Pakistan, and Federal Board of Revenue Chairman Mohammad Jehanzeb Khan were fired because of their “performance,” Firdous Ashiq Awan, a special assistant to Prime Minister ...

Bloomberg The Bank of England (BOE) signalled that it’s in no rush to raise interest rates despite stronger economic growth, as policy makers stayed united on the need to keep borrowing costs on hold for now. In an upbeat set of forecasts, Governor Mark Carney and his colleagues upgraded their expectations for growth, saying unemployment will fall further and the ...

Bloomberg India’s central bank Governor Shaktikanta Das has built up support on both sides of the political divide, making his position relatively safe under a new government no matter who wins the election. As an ex-career bureaucrat, Das has worked under administrations led by both Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party and the opposition Indian National Congress. He’s likely ...

Bloomberg European Central Bank policy makers who sounded the alarm about the region’s slowdown last month can now relax a bit as the stimulus they prepped becomes less urgent. It was during the first quarter that officials, led by President Mario Draghi, reactivated plans to aid growth in a moment of embarrassment so soon after concluding bond purchases last year. ...

Bloomberg Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is planning to open a stock-trading brokerage in Mexico as it boosts its presence in Latin America’s second-largest economy. The move will allow the firm to buy and sell stocks locally on behalf of clients, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The new business line, still months away from being up and running, ...

Bloomberg Singapore’s economy will slow in 2019, reflecting a weakening in key trading partners and a further cooling of the electronics sector, the central bank said. The city state is set to expand slightly below the midpoint of a 1.5 percent to 3.5 percent forecast range for this year after growing 3.2 percent in 2018, the Monetary Authority of Singapore ...

Bloomberg The US Treasury Department indicated that the government will need to borrow less than previously estimated as the Federal Reserve slows the reduction of its asset portfolio on its balance sheet. The department expects to issue $30 billion in privately held net marketable debt between April and June, assuming a cash balance of $270 billion at the end of ...

Bloomberg HSBC Holdings Plc spent 150 years building a financial fortress around Hong Kong that touches nearly every aspect of life in the former British colony. One of the bank’s biggest threats? A pack of upstart virtual lenders, which barely existed two months ago, backed by the likes of Standard Chartered Plc and Chinese internet insurer ZhongAn Online P&C Insurance ...

Bloomberg The two biggest banks in the Nordic region saw their market values shrink on Tuesday after publishing first-quarter results that disappointed investors. Danske Bank A/S said it now expects net interest income to be lower this year than in 2018 as the higher cost of funding brought on by its money-laundering scandal erodes its top line. Its shares plunged ...