Banking

Bloomberg German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cabinet agreed to extend Jens Weidmann’s term as head of the Bundesbank by another eight years from May as he waits to see if he is picked later this year for the top job at the European Central Bank. The decision, which needs formal approval from President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, was taken at a meeting on ...

Bloomberg The Bank of Japan may resort to its least preferred tool to expand stimulus next time the yen jumps: more government bond purchases. That’s according to Takahide Kiuchi, a former BOJ policy board member who said the central bank’s favored option — deepening negative interest rates — would face opposition from Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s administration because it would ...

Bloomberg Metro Bank Plc, the lender founded by US entrepreneur Vernon Hill, plunged to a record low after it disclosed that British regulators are probing how it misclassified assets, an incident that prompted a share sale. Shares in Metro Bank tumbled as much as 20.8 percent to 1,030 pence, the lowest since the London-based lender first sold stock to the ...

Bloomberg Banco Santander SA may return to using a scrip dividend a year after saying it would reward shareholders entirely in cash, in a sign that it’s concerned about capital. Spain’s biggest bank said it would combine any such payout with share repurchases to avoid diluting the existing stock. The lender also decided to increase its medium-term dividend payout target ...

Bloomberg Federal Reserve policy makers see 2019 marking the end of their balance sheet run-off, but not necessarily their interest-rate increases. Minutes of the central bank’s January 29-30 policy meeting released showed “almost all participants” agreeing it best to halt roll-offs this year, a move that should be welcomed by investors worried the balance sheet draw-down is hurting the economy. ...

Bloomberg Roberto Campos Neto needs no introduction in financial markets, but his thoughts on how the central bank could boost Brazil’s recovery have remained a mystery. While the money-making talents of the former Santander treasurer are well known, the Senate confirmation hearing should finally reveal what the nominee for the central bank’s presidency thinks about interest rates, inflation, and Brazil’s ...

Bloomberg The European Union’s highest court overturned Latvia’s suspension of central bank Governor Ilmars Rimsevics as part of a bribery probe that’s shaken the Baltic nation. In a victory for the European Central Bank, the EU Court of Justice on Tuesday said Latvia last year illegally prohibited the ECB Governing Council member from performing his role as central bank governor. ...

Bloomberg The Bank of England stepped up its defenses against a disruptive Brexit, offering lenders extra liquidity provisions over the period covering the UK’s withdrawal. The BOE will hold Indexed Long-Term Repo operations on a weekly instead of monthly basis between March 12 and the end of April — the time surrounding the planned exit date. The approach, designed to ...

Bloomberg The doyen of Australian interest-rate forecasters has shifted ground and now predicts the Reserve Bank will cut twice to counter slower growth and higher unemployment. Bill Evans’s announcement that he expects the RBA to reduce the cash rate by a quarter-percentage point in August and November came less than an hour after employment data showed strong hiring in January. ...

Bloomberg Two Federal Reserve officials highlighted the benefits of an approach to monetary policy called average inflation targeting, which would entail accepting overshoots of the central bank’s 2 percent price goal to make up for times when inflation was too low. San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly and John Williams, who preceded her in that role before shifting to run ...