Banking

Bloomberg Mario Draghi’s latest stimulus salvo means his successor as European Central Bank chief may not be forced into the kind of monetary policy U-turn he once faced. The president, who began his eight-year term reversing course on a recent interest-rate increase by his predecessor, has set in place the conditions to keep the euro zone in easing mode until ...

Bloomberg Credit Suisse Group AG is targeting 2 billion francs ($2 billion) in pretax profit for 2019 in its key wealth-manage-ment unit, seeking a fourth consecutive year of profit growth for the division, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Iqbal Khan, head of international wealth management, told staff at an internal company event last week that he’s aiming ...

Bloomberg Deutsche Bank AG faces stiff resistance from some supervisory board members to a merger with German competitor Commerzbank AG as the deal raises the prospect of tens of thousands of job cuts. Jan Duscheck and Stephan Szukalski, two key labour representatives on Deutsche Bank’s highest oversight body, oppose the merger, saying a combination would fail to achieve the goal ...

Bloomberg Strategists are telling investors to prepare for both the best and the worst outcomes as risk assets around the world reach a crossroads. Global markets are facing a number of positive catalysts in 2019. The Federal Reserve’s in a wait-and-see mode, and the European Central Bank has begun upping its stimulus. Economies around the world are growing and the ...

Bloomberg The bottom line is that the top line stinks. That’s the challenge facing South Africa’s biggest banks as they fight to contain costs that are accelerating faster than revenue. The reasons are pretty much the same: South Africa’s economy hasn’t expanded at more than 2 percent a year since 2013 and unemployment is at 27 percent. In addition, consumers ...

Bloomberg As an activist investor targets Barclays Plc for taking on too much risk, the London-based lender has disclosed how its internal models failed to predict a series of trading losses at its investment bank. Barclays issued a so-called amber alert last year after the issues with its trading arm’s value-at-risk modeling, according to a recent filing. Tests of its ...

Bloomberg BNP Paribas, France’s biggest lender, plans to expand China operations to include brokerage, futures trading and wealth-management ventures, as the bank anticipates further foreign investment flows into world’s second-biggest economy. CG Lai, CEO of BNP Paribas China, said his firm was one of many international players establishing and expanding their presence in the country. The moves come as index ...

Bloomberg Denmark plans to let its financial watchdog impose fines without going via the courts, in order to speed up the process of punishing banks involved in money laundering. The decision, which still needs to be debated in the country’s parliament, is the latest step being pushed by Business Minister Rasmus Jarlov as he responds to a $230 billion dirty ...

Bloomberg Sweden’s government wants to revisit the idea of imposing a tax on the financial industry. Finance Minister Magdalena Andersson says her goal is to have a levy that singles out banks with far more precision than previous proposals. “It should include only the financial sector,” she said in an interview in Stockholm. “We want one that has a more ...

Bloomberg Goldman Sachs Group Inc. has picked a little-known technology firm to help handle payments for its planned credit-card partnership with Apple Inc. The bank struck a deal last year to license payments-processing software from CoreCard Software, owned by Intelligent Systems Corp., to help with its foray into the consumer-card business, according to a person with knowledge of the matter, ...