Banking

Bloomberg As Sweden gets to grips with the money laundering scandal battering its oldest bank, questions are being asked about the impartiality of those overseeing the case. Swedbank AB reportedly handled more than $10 billion in suspicious flows tied to the Danske Bank A/S Estonian laundering scandal. The case became public knowledge only this year, but according to Swedish media ...

Bloomberg Euro-area banks will know by June how generous the terms of the European Central Bank’s new loans are going to be, according to Governing Council member Olli Rehn. Policy makers have yet to pass judgment on the severity of the current slowdown that prompted that measure, the Finnish central bank governor told Bloomberg in an interview. They are determined ...

Bloomberg Citigroup Inc. faces a 133 million yen ($1.2 million) fine for allegedly manipulating prices in the Japanese government bond futures market, its latest regulatory setback in Asia. Japan’s securities watchdog said Citigroup placed orders in October for JGB futures contracts at the Osaka Exchange without intending to execute them, a practice known as spoofing. The Securities and Exchange Surveillance ...

Bloomberg UBS Group AG has named Patrick Tsang as head of telecommunications, media and technology investment banking for Asia Pacific, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Tsang, a Hong Kong-based managing director for the Swiss bank, is replacing Randy Gelber, who is leaving to pursue other opportunities, the people said, asking not to be identified because the matter ...

Bloomberg A Japanese lender has this year bought the lion’s share of top-rated bonds that are backed by pools of European corporate loans, propping up the region’s market for collateralised debt obligations amid a very difficult first quarter. Norinchukin Bank, starved of yields thanks to Japan’s negative interest rates, is expected to keep buying AAA-rated tranches in Europe until at ...

Bloomberg The Federal Reserve may have to put interest-rate increases on hold or even ease monetary policy if economic forecasts for 2019 disappoint, Chicago Fed President Charles Evans said. “At the moment, the risks from the downside scenarios loom larger than those from the upside ones,” Evans said in remarks prepared for a speech on Monday in Hong Kong. “If ...

Bloomberg Jens Weidmann may struggle to pass the test that France’s finance minister is setting for prospective successors to European Central Bank President Mario Draghi. In a rare foray on the matter this week, Bruno Le Maire lavished praise on the Italian incumbent for quantitative easing, and suggested France would want someone with similar “courage” as a replacement. That may ...

Bloomberg African Bank Holdings Ltd. is joining the rush into digital banking to fail-proof the business and provide an exit for shareholders that resurrected the South African lender from its collapsed former parent. The firm’s unusual owners, which includes the South African central bank and six of the nation’s largest lenders, stepped in to save it with an equity injection ...

Bloomberg A federal judge said he’s not ready to sign off on Wells Fargo & Co. collecting $240 million in insurance payments from 20 bank officials in connection with the lender’s unauthorised-accounts scandal — even though the settlement was touted as the largest-ever of its kind. That came just hours after Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell reiterated that the regulator ...

Bloomberg As major central banks scale back plans to raise interest rates amid signs of a weaker economic expansion, some parts of eastern Europe are set to push for measures to cool price growth. Hungary will kick off the deliberations on Tuesday by starting to unwind its monetary stimulus. Two days later, the Czech Republic will debate whether to resume ...