Banking

Bloomberg Canada’s eight big banks extended their record earnings streak this year, posting a 7.5 percent jump in annual profit fuelled by operations outside their home turf. Net income for the companies totalled C$45.9 billion ($34.3 billion) in the fiscal year ended October 31. Toronto-Dominion Bank and Bank of Montreal profited from their US consumer-lending divisions, while Bank of Nova ...

Bloomberg Plans to merge two Kenyan banks will create a lender that can compete adequately with West African banks that are expanding into the region, Treasury Secretary Henry Rotich said. NIC Group Plc, one of Kenya’s mid-sized publicly traded banks, is in merger talks with Commercial Bank of Africa Ltd., the nation’s biggest closely held lender, the two said. The ...

Bloomberg The German finance ministry is willing to “orchestrate” a mer-ger between Deutsche Bank AG and Commerzbank AG, according to Focus magazine. Various scenarios have been discussed, including one in which the German state would become Deutsche Bank’s largest shareholder for about five years before merging the two banks, Focus reported without saying how it got the information. Alternatively, Deutsche ...

Bloomberg European banks are turning to a little-known corner of the debt market as they seek new growth amid slumping loan demand. At least seven lenders, most recently including UBS Group AG, have made their debuts as Schuldschein arrangers this year, pushing into a market traditionally dominated by Germany’s landesbanks. The new entrants, also featuring ABN Amro Group NV and ...

Bloomberg Federal Reserve Bank of New York President John Williams gave an optimistic review of the US economy, reiterated his support for further gradual interest-rate increases and expressed no concern that market participants have dialed back expectations for policy tightening in 2019. Markets moved sharply after Chairman Jerome Powell said that the Fed is getting closer to its range of ...

Bloomberg India’s central bank kept interest rates unchanged for a second straight meeting as inflation and economic growth slowed in Asia’s third-largest economy. The benchmark repurchase rate will stay at 6.5 percent, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said in a statement in Mumbai on Wednesday, in line with most of the forecasts in a Bloomberg survey. The RBI, which ...

Bloomberg Wells Fargo & Co’s Tim Sloan warned investors that the firm’s net interest income (NII) would be less than analysts are predicting, and shares of the company dropped the most in more than a month. Fourth-quarter NII will be flat compared with the previous three months, when the bank collected $12.6 billion in interest, the chief executive officer said ...

Bloomberg Money-market traders, already having written off a hike at Wednesday’s Bank of Canada (BOC) meeting, are beginning to doubt that policy makers will pull the trigger next month either. While the Federal Reserve is widely expected to proceed with another quarter-point interest-rate increase in two weeks, overnight index swaps are pricing in just 16 basis points of tightening by ...

Bloomberg Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said that while the central bank has made progresstowards a “strong economy” with rising wages, many lower-income workers have been left behind. “The Federal Reserve’s mission is to promote a strong economy and sound financial system,” Powell said in remarks prepared for delivery in Washington. “I am glad to say we have made a ...

Bloomberg Pakistan’s government plans to make the central bank report any planned currency adjustments to a committee, a move seen to curb the regulator’s independence as the nation negotiates an International Monetary Fund bailout. The State Bank of Pakistan has weakened the rupee for the fifth time this year and raised the key interest rate — roiling the stock market. ...