Banking

Bloomberg Hong Kong’s banking sector, one of the most staid areas of its financial industry, is seeing an unusual spurt of recruitment as newly licensed virtual banks race to snap up talent. Four ventures that won permits have about 200 people in the city, which may more than double by the time they start operating, said Carol Cheung, a director ...

Bloomberg Europe’s most hawkish central bank is preparing to raise borrowing costs again, defying a global economic slowdown that’s made most of its peers more cautious. Czech policy makers have held interest rates unchanged for the past three meetings as external risks including Brexit, trade wars, and weakening demand from neighboring Germany overshadowed domestic inflationary pressures. But with worst-case scenarios ...

Bloomberg As Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and his colleagues gather this week for a policy making meeting, some of them will likely have 1995 on their mind. That was the year that the Fed initiated a mid-course correction in monetary policy, cutting interest rates after a sustained bout of tightening. Now some officials and investors are beginning to wonder ...

Bloomberg Three months since the Federal Reserve put US interest rates on a prolonged pause, more and more central bankers around the world are getting nervous about tightening monetary policy. Policy makers across Asia, Europe and North America shifted their tones, with Sweden and Canada among them. The caution came in a week of fresh pessimism on the global outlook ...

Bloomberg Philippines central bank Governor Benjamin Diokno said it is only a matter of timing as to when monetary policy is eased after last year’s series of interest-rate increases, even as authorities closely monitor oil prices. A rate cut at the May 9 policy meeting will depend on key data and the outlook on El Nino weather, Diokno said in ...

Bloomberg Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) Group Plc tumbled after the state-backed lender said Britain’s slowing economy is likely to bite into income over the coming months. The bank’s shares fell as much as seven percent after it sounded the strongest warning yet on the impact of Brexit this year. The note of caution overshadowed the bank posting a better-than-expected ...

Bloomberg India’s top court directed the central bank to disclose its inspection reports on lend-ers to allow people to gauge their health. The order was the “last opportunity” to avoid initiation of contempt proceedings against Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Shaktikanta Das, a two-judge bench of the Supreme Court headed by Justice L.N. Rao ruled. The central bank will ...

Bloomberg The financial regulator at the epicenter of Europe’s vast dirty money scandal says a key part of what really happened has been misunderstood. Danske Bank A/S became the modern-day poster child for Russian money laundering after it published a report in September that revealed a shocking number: $230 billion. Jesper Berg, the director general of the Financial Supervisory Authority ...

Bloomberg Fierce resistance from corporate clients dealt a key blow to Deutsche Bank AG’s deal talks with Commerzbank AG, according to people familiar with the matter. Many Deutsche Bank customers threatened to cut ties with Germany’s largest bank should the deal go through, said the people, asking not to be named because the details haven’t been publicly disclosed. That ultimately ...

Bloomberg The Bank of England (BOE) is widely expected to keep interest rates unchanged when it meets next week, although some analysts see the risk of a hawkish surprise. While all 24 economists surveyed by Bloomberg predict policy makers will maintain rates at 0.75 percent, six see one official voting for an immediate hike. Such a move would be a ...