Banking

Bloomberg Jeremy Corbyn being elected UK prime minister would be just as damaging to British banks’ profits as the country crashing out of the European Union without a withdr- awal agreement, according to Citigroup Inc. While London-listed bank stocks have recovered from last year’s lows as the risk of a “no-deal Brexit” gradually subsides, a snap election is becoming more ...

Bloomberg Global finance ministers and central bankers are prepared to “act promptly” to shore up growth in a world economy that faces downside risks including trade tensions, according to a statement. While growth is projected to firm up in 2020, “risks remain tilted to the downside,” according to a communique by the International Monetary and Financial Committee, the main advisory ...

Bloomberg Bank of Canada (BOC) Governor Stephen Poloz said whether he’s done with hiking altogether is a “data-dependent question,” adding the economy continues to work through headwinds that warrant stimulative rates. Asked at a press briefing in Washington about investor expectations that the Canadian central bank’s rate normalisation has come to an end, Poloz said market pricing seems to be ...

Bloomberg European Central Bank President Mario Draghi took the rare step of weighing in on the hot debate over whether President Donald Trump is undermining the independence of the Federal Reserve. Speaking to reporters at the International Monetary Fund meetings in Washington, Draghi said he was “certainly worried about central bank independence” and especially “in the most important jurisdiction in ...

Bloomberg Reserve Bank of India Governor Shaktikanta Das has an “out of the box” suggestion: central banks need to be more flexible on the size of their interest-rate moves. Instead of a conventional 25 basis point cut and announcement of a dovish, hawkish or neutral stance to give guidance on future actions, policy makers could just change the rate to ...

Bloomberg The Swiss National Bank (SNB) could reduce its already ultra-low interest rates again if the situation warrants, President Thomas Jordan said. With a deposit rate of minus 0.75 percent, the SNB has already enacted the lowest interest rate of any major central bank. That tool is designed to keep pressure off the franc, which is regarded as a safe ...

Bloomberg Efforts to fight money laundering across the Nordic and Baltic states took a more aggressive turn. Estonia’s state prosecutor is expanding an investigation into Danske Bank A/S to include Swedbank AB of Sweden. Meanwhile, the accounting firms Ernst & Young and KPMG were both reported to the police in Denmark amid allegations they failed to respond to red flags ...

Bloomberg Two of the ECB Governing Council’s leading members gave a tentative welcome to the review of the institution’s negative rate policy announced this week by President Mario Draghi. Speaking at the International Monetary Fund meetings in Washington, both Chief Economist Peter Praet and Bundesbank president Jens Weidmann signaled they were open to the rethink, though they stopped short of ...

Bloomberg JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Wells Fargo & Co. have long been locked in a fierce race to serve US consumers. One is pulling ahead. JPMorgan now generates $2 billion more in revenue from its consumer banking unit than its rival, after trailing Wells Fargo by almost $1 billion just two years ago. Jamie Dimon’s New York firm has ...

Bloomberg A senior official at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) defended the Bank of Japan’s (BOJ) 2 percent inflation target as appropriate and important to achieve. “Two percent is what the central banks of major economies are pursuing,” Odd Per Brekk, deputy director of the Asia-Pacific department, said in an interview. “Over time, if this can be accomplished then it ...