Banking

Bloomberg Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and his colleagues have made an important shift in their strategy for dealing with inflation in a prelude to what could be a more radical change next year. The central bank has backed off the interest-rate hikes it had been delivering to avoid a potentially dangerous rise in inflation that economic theory says could ...

Bloomberg The biggest US banks have leaned on retail banking businesses to offset a prolonged slump in trading and drive record profits. Now comes the question of whether they can keep it up. The lenders, led by JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Bank of America Corp., are delivering on the promise that the stockpiles of deposits they spent years attracting ...

Bloomberg Citigroup Inc. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. both delivered better-than-expected earnings. Instead of celebrating, executives were assuring investors they’ll make more progress on revamping units that are dragging down results. Growth stalled at Citigroup’s consumer unit, so executives pointed to green shoots in a digital bank effort. Goldman Sachs had the biggest first-quarter trading decline among banks that have ...

Bloomberg China’s central bank cut some of the long-term funding it supplies banks in a sign it may be dialing back its monetary stimulus as the economy strengthens. The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) rolled over about half of the funds coming due via 1-year medium-term lending, and also offered to lend 160 billion yuan ($24 billion) for 7 days ...

Bloomberg Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp. (OCBC) is looking for a Chinese firm to team up with on a securities joint venture on the mainland, the latest foreign bank seeking to capitalsise on the nation’s financial-industry loosening. Obtaining a Chinese securities license would allow OCBC to do asset management, investment banking and fund management business in the nation, Chief Executive Officer Samuel Tsien ...

Bloomberg Commerzbank AG has been sounded out by ING Groep NV about a possible combination of the two lenders, according to a person familiar with the matter, as the German firm’s talks with domestic rival Deutsche Bank AG draw increasing criticism. Commerzbank shares extended gains after Manager Magazin first reported the talks, citing people it didn’t identify. ING Chief Executive ...

Bloomberg The delay to Brexit has potentially given the Czech central bank a small window to raise borrowing costs this year as it tries to put a lid on price growth before the economy slows, board member Tomas Holub said. After leading Europe with five interest-rate hikes last year, policy makers in Prague will most likely deliver only one in ...

Bloomberg Deutsche Bank AG estimates it could lose the equivalent of almost a fifth of Commerzbank AG’s annual revenue should it go ahead with a takeover of the lender, another potential sticking point for a deal that’s run into hurdles of late. Customers seeking to reduce their exposure to the combined lender could pull business worth 1 billion euros to ...

Bloomberg The Bank of Japan (BOJ) needs a vision for eventually unwinding its massive asset purchases if it eases policy further, according to a former BOJ official. “It’s becoming important for the BOJ to not simply say it is strengthening stimulus but to plot the course of events, to tell the story of how these steps will lead to normalisation,” ...

Bloomberg Government companies in South Africa that have had billions of rand looted through a process known as state capture shouldn’t be bailed out by the central bank even as they pose a significant fiscal risk, Governor Lesetja Kganyago said. “The challenge of dealing with too-big-to-fail SOEs, of combining cash injections with conditionality measures, needs to be dealt with by ...