Banking

Bloomberg Angola’s central bank, which revoked two lenders’ banking licenses this month, will shut down more institutions if they fail to meet minimum capital levels amid an asset-quality review, Governor Jose Lima de Massano said. Bad loans have crippled the banking sector of Africa’s second-biggest oil producer after a sharp drop in crude prices in mid-2014 triggered a three-year economic ...

Bloomberg Societe Generale SA is considering closing its proprietary-trading unit, people familiar with the matter said, a week after French rival BNP Paribas SA decided to shut its operation. SocGen executives are reviewing the future of the Descartes Trading division, which makes risky bets with its shareholders’ funds, said the people, who requested anonymity as the details are private. The ...

Bloomberg Federal Reserve Governor Randal Quarles expressed optimism about the state of the US economy, calling strong hiring and low inflation a “good environment” even as investors focus on mounting threats to growth. “Clearly markets are more attuned currently to the downside risks, but the core base case remains very strong,” Quarles, the central bank’s vice chairman for supervision, said ...

Bloomberg Mario Draghi is running out of time to say whether he’ll shake up the responsibilities of his top officials to ensure smooth leadership in the supervision of the region’s banks. The European Central Bank president faces a deadline of February 11, when Executive Board member Sabine Laut- enschlaeger’s non-renewable five-year term as vice chair of bank supervision expires. He ...

Bloomberg Morgan Stanley, the world’s second-largest wealth manager, is beefing up its services for rich clients in Singapore with a focus on Chinese entrepreneurs looking to set up family offices in the city state. “The city is a key business hub for China entrepreneurs, as well as a family office nexus,” Vincent Chui, who heads the bank’s Asia wealth operations, ...

Bloomberg The Bank of Italy cut its growth forecast for this year and next while signalling that the euro region’s third-biggest economy might have slipped into a new recession at the end of 2018. The economy is seen expanding 0.6 percent this year and 0.9 percent next, down from prior projections of 1 percent and 1.1 percent respectively, the central ...

Bloomberg China’s smaller banks, among the hardest hit by President Xi Jinping’s crackdown on risky financing, are set for a tougher 2019 as authorities force them to shut business lines that once powered profit growth. Authorities have ordered the nation’s provincial lenders to limit business to the region they’re based in, or wind down by the end of this year, ...

Bloomberg The euro-area economy isn’t headed for a recession, even though softening momentum underscores the need for European Central Bank stimulus, according to President Mario Draghi. “The question we should ask is: Is this a sag or heading towards a recession?” Draghi told members of the European Parliament in Strasbourg. “The answer we give is: No, it’s a slowdown, which ...

Bloomberg Banco Santander SA reversed course on installing Andrea Orcel as its next chief executive officer after a standoff over tens of millions of dollars in deferred pay. UBS Group AG held a hard line that Orcel, who led its investment bank until a few months ago, was defecting to a rival and wouldn’t receive bonuses he was owed from ...

Bloomberg Deutsche Bank AG Chief Executive Officer Christian Sewing launched a further internal investigation into the lender’s role as correspondent bank for scandal-ridden Danske Bank’s Estonian unit, even though he hasn’t seen any evidence of wrongdoing. The bank had previously probed its role in the case as well as any involvement in a tax evasion scheme “long before the cases ...