Banking

Bloomberg The European Central Bank’s purchase of almost 180 billion euros ($204 billion) of corporate bonds has upended the region’s credit markets, even if some fast-moving indicators are back to pre-intervention levels. Metrics such as spreads and the number of negative-yielding bonds have largely returned to levels seen in early 2016, before the ECB announced plans to start buying corporate ...

Bloomberg Deutsche Bank AG and 16 other lenders recently tested moving interest-rate swap positions from London to Frankfurt, according to people familiar with the matter, a signal that financial firms are pushing ahead with preparations for no-deal Brexit. The banks made dummy trades on December 3 in the first known dry run of a service that could move trillions of ...

Bloomberg Germany’s federal government plans to increase gross borrowing by around 15 percent to 199 billion euros ($226 billion) next year to accommodate refinancing of the nation’s “bad bank” fund that was set up during the height of the financial crisis. The government will sell 156 billion euros in bonds and 43 billion euros in short-term bills, according to the ...

Bloomberg Australia’s economy faces a trifecta of risks that could disrupt household spending and the central bank’s outlook for faster economic growth and falling unemployment. In minutes of its last policy meeting for the year, the Reserve Bank (RBA) struck a slightly dovish tone. It noted a “generalised tightening of credit availability” in the economy even as it stuck to ...

Bloomberg The Swiss National Bank (SNB) cut its inflation forecast and showed no inclination of moving off its crisis-era settings, citing franc’s strength and mounting global risks. Investor anxiety about Italian politics, trade tensions and Brexit has put upward pressure on the franc in recent months, dragging it further away from its April low against the euro. Highlighting those risks, ...

Bloomberg As the Federal Reserve approaches the final stages of monetary policy normalisation 10 years after it cut interest rates to zero, it faces the tough task of charting a less certain path while taking incoming fire from President Donald Trump. Chairman Jerome Powell and his colleagues are expected to ignore Trump’s criticisms and raise interest rates this week for ...

Bloomberg Deutsche Bank AG’s quarterly revenue was impacted by the raids on its Frankfurt headquarters, Chief Financial Officer James von Moltke told Bloomberg. “The raid has not helped us on the revenue side, especially in a weak market environment like we have seen in December,” von Moltke said in email comments. “We expect these negative effects to fade away soon ...

Bloomberg Denmark is trying to find out just how many banks were involved in suspicious stock trades executed for the sole purpose of getting a tax rebate. The transactions in question started more than a decade ago, after Denmark and Switzerland made it possible to claim back taxes on dividends through a revised double-taxation accord between the two countries. Nordea ...

Bloomberg Bankers and borrowers are bracing themselves for a difficult year selling eurobonds now that the days of easy money are coming to an end. January’s often the busiest month of the year for new bond sales but as credit markets lose their biggest backer and political threats loom — Brexit, Italian fiscal angst and trade woes — companies must ...

Bloomberg Standard Chartered Plc reached an agreement to separate its private-equity unit, ending more than two years of effort by Chief Executive Officer Bill Winters to get out of the business. Intermediate Capital Group Plc said on Monday that its funds are buying a majority of the bank’s private-equity assets in a transaction valued at about 790 million pounds ($997 ...