Banking

Bloomberg Societe Generale SA plans to cut as many as 700 jobs in Paris and eliminate hundreds more positions in London and New York after experiencing a difficult first-quarter in investment banking, people with knowledge of the matter said. The French bank is speeding up staff reductions at its headquarters after tough trading conditions persisted into the new year and ...

Bloomberg A week after Swedbank AB fired its chief executive officer, the lender is parting ways with its chairman as a multibillion dollar money-laundering scandal forces top-level changes. Lars Idermark has decided to leave Sweden’s oldest bank and biggest mortgage lender with immediate effect, Swedbank said in a statement. That follows a March 28 announcement that CEO Birgitte Bonnesen had ...

Bloomberg Commerzbank AG Chief Executive Officer Martin Zielke, almost three weeks into formal discussions about a combination with Deutsche Bank AG, is lobbying hard to overcome internal opposition to the idea. The lender doesn’t have the market share needed for costly investments to pay off, Zielke told employees in a memo. Low interest rates are squeezing profits, regulatory expenses have ...

Bloomberg Iceland’s central bank now has more scope to cut interest rates as a result of this week’s agreement between workers and employers, despite an “unfortunate” clause in the deal that ties planned pay hikes to monetary policy, Governor Mar Gudmundsson said. “The break-even inflation rate in the market has now slumped, the exchange rate has been strengthening and our ...

Bloomberg Banco Santander SA pledged to cut 1.2 billion euros ($1.4 billion) of annual costs and ramp up investment in digital and its prized Brazilian business as the Spanish lender seeks to revive its moribund share price. The Spanish banking group plans to achieve the incremental cost cuts over three to four years while investing 20 billion euros in digitalisation, ...

Bloomberg UniCredit SpA is nearing an agreement with US authorities over allegations that the bank provided dollar-clearing services to Iranian clients in violation of US sanctions, people with the knowledge of the matter said. The deal would cost the Italian lender about $900 million but spare it from criminal prosecution, the people said. A settlement of that size would be ...

Bloomberg Zimbabwe’s lenders, which include units of Standard Bank Group Ltd and Ecobank Ltd, appealed to the central bank to raise interest rates that have been capped at 12 percent for the past two years, saying this would increase lending in the collapsing economy. They also proposed that the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe introduce an overnight rate to facilitate lending ...

Bloomberg SoftBank Group Corp plans to hire about 10 people to boost its in-house investment capabilities, primarily from Goldman Sachs Group Inc, according to people familiar with the situation. The additions will come from banking, private equity, consulting and, in at least one case, the medical profession, said the people, asking not to be named because the matter is private. ...

Bloomberg Germany’s beleaguered investment bankers could face even more competition when rivals move staff to the country after Brexit. While relocations from the UK will initially have little effect, that may change if banks then use their newly established presence in Germany to expand in the local market for investment banking services, Joachim Wuermeling, the head of banking supervision at ...

Bloomberg The Bank of England (BOE) has been meeting with direct lenders to gauge the industry’s resilience to slowing growth, according to two people familiar with the matter. At least two of the biggest UK private credit funds met separately with members of the central bank’s financial stability unit in the past month, said the people, who asked not to ...