Bloomberg UBS Global Wealth Management predicts the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates twice this year despite markets pricing in little chance of that happening. An expanding US economy and low recession risk may provide opportunities for the Fed to keep ratcheting up borrowing costs, said Min Lan Tan, head of the chief investment officer for Asia Pacific in Singapore. ...
Read More »Banking
Monte Paschi drops amid ‘capital and profit issues’
Bloomberg Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA dropped in Milan trading after the European Central Bank highlighted weaknesses in the Italian lender’s capital and profitability. The ECB told the bank that its inability to issue the second tranche of a junior bond issue last year hurt its capital position, Monte Paschi said in a statement. The Italian bank plans ...
Read More »Cutting economic outlook kept growth risks balanced: ECB
Bloomberg European Central Bank (ECB) officials agreed that a cut to their 2019 growth projection in itself acknowledged that risks to the outlook for the euro-area economy had increased. That effectively allowed President Mario Draghi to avoid saying in December that the balance of risks was to the downside, which would have jarred alongside a decision to halt bond buying ...
Read More »China’s biggest bank cuts space at New York’s Trump tower
Bloomberg Two of China’s New York power players are pulling back from Trump — Trump Tower, that is. First, a big Chinese conglomerate, HNA Group Co, moved to sell a Manhattan office tower four blocks from Trump Tower after US authorities raised national security concerns. A deal has finally been cut. Now, China’s biggest bank, Industrial & Commercial Bank of ...
Read More »Deutsche Bank sued over $53mn tax bill
Bloomberg M.M. Warburg & Co, a private bank under investigation in Germany over a series of controversial tax deals, has opened a new legal front by suing Deutsche Bank AG to pick up the bill. Warburg filed a suit in Frankfurt in December to force Deutsche Bank to pay a 46 million-euro ($53 million) tax bill the company received over ...
Read More »UBS to make Orcel wait for new CEO gig
Bloomberg Andrea Orcel, the former top dealmaker at UBS Group AG, will have to wait until April to take on his new role as chief executive officer at Banco Santander SA after the Swiss bank decided to enforce his entire six-month garden leave, people familiar with the matter said. Orcel was expected to make the move early in the first ...
Read More »Policy stability seen as African central bankers’ terms end
Bloomberg The possible replacement of the governors of three key African central banks this year could yield an unexpected surprise: policy stability. Time is running out on the first terms of Nigeria’s Godwin Emefiele, Kenya’s Patrick Njoroge and South Africa’s Lesetja Kganyago. While all three are eligible to serve another term at the helms of their central banks, this isn’t ...
Read More »Fed can be patient before adjusting rates: Powell
Bloomberg Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said the US central bank can be patient before adjusting interest rates again as it waits to see how global risks impact the domestic economy. “We’re in a place where we can be patient and flexible and wait and see what does evolve, and I think for the meantime we’re waiting and watching,†Powell ...
Read More »India’s SBI selects banks for $1.4bn share sale
Bloomberg State Bank of India, the country’s largest lender, has selected underwriters for an institutional share sale that could raise at least 100 billion rupees ($1.4 billion), people with knowledge of the matter said. The government-run lender picked Bank of America Corp, CLSA Ltd and HSBC Holdings Plc to arrange the offering, according to the people, who asked not to ...
Read More »PBOC set to cut reserve ratio further
Bloomberg The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) is expected to continue to cut the amount of cash that banks must hold as reserves further in 2019 while keeping interbank borrowing costs largely steady even amid tightening US Federal Reserve policy, according to a survey. As part of efforts to shore up the slowing economy, the central bank will cut the ...
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