Banking

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 ...

Bloomberg Bank Indonesia Governor Perry Warjiyo signalled central bank may hold the key rate, saying the benchmark interest rate has “almost reached its peak” after an aggressive hiking cycle helped stabilise the nation’s currency. While the bank’s monetary policy stance remains “pre-emptive and ahead of the curve,” a more favorable outlook for US interest rate will allow Indonesia to rely ...

Bloomberg The Bank of Japan (BOJ) is almost certain to cut its inflation forecast for the fiscal year starting in April given the sharp fall in oil prices, according to people familiar with the matter. The government’s decision to make pre-school education free adds to the case for the downgrade, which will be delivered at the end of the next ...

Bloomberg Citigroup Inc offered some hope that the worst is over for its bond-trading business after the toughest quarter for that unit in seven years. The lender’s shares jumped almost 4 percent, the most in the S&P 500 Index, after Chief Financial Officer John Gerspach said the trading environment was starting to improve this month. The brighter outlook came after ...

Bloomberg Big investment banks scored a victory in their campaign to soften global rules, as regulators reduced the capital hit from new trading-book standards by nearly half. The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision said its final market-risk standards will drive up banks’ trading-book capital requirements by a weighted average of about 22 percent from current levels. That’s down from the ...

Bloomberg Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Richard Clarida left open the possibility the US central bank will raise interest rates in 2019 fewer than the two times projected by policy makers at their last meeting. “A lot has really happened since the first week of December,” Clarida said in an interview on Fox Business Network. “Some of the global growth data ...

Bloomberg The European Investment Bank (EIB) is being sued in the region’s second-highest court over a Spanish loan that climate lawyers contend will damage the environment. The suit is being brought by the not-for-profit environmental advocacy group ClientEarth, which wants European Union judges to determine whether the EIB breached its own renewable energy-financing criteria. The London-based group said it’s the ...