Banking

Bloomberg Greece’s Eurobank Ergasias SA isn’t waiting around for a state rescue, with a plan to sell about 7 billion euros ($8 billion) of troubled loans and merge with a real estate fund. The shares soared, leading the country’s banking index higher. As part of the plan, the bank will merge with real estate fund Grivalia Properties REIC to create ...

Bloomberg European Central Bank (ECB) chief economist Peter Praet said the end of the institution’s bond-buying program — quantitative easing (QE) — this year doesn’t mean policy is being tightened, as he pointed to “increasingly noticeable” headwinds for the economy. The message comes as the Governing Council prepares for its December 13 meeting, when it will publish new economic forecasts ...

Bloomberg The financial regulator of Danske Bank A/S says it’s now telling lenders to be more selective when choosing correspondent banks. The decision comes after Denmark’s biggest bank ended up at the center of one of Europe’s worst ever money laundering scandals. Danske’s regulator says some of the bank’s employees were probably involved in “criminal” acts, and the lender may ...

Bloomberg Global governments are doing the most to propel the world economy in a decade just as growth slows. As leaders from the Group of 20 prepare to meet this week in Argentina, JPMorgan Chase & Co economists calculate easier fiscal policy will add 0.3 percentage point to global gross domestic product next year, the biggest impulse this decade. That’s ...

Bloomberg FirstRand Ltd’s First National Bank (FNB) and a startup financial-technology company in South Africa are partnering to connect informal traders in townships with fast-moving consumer-goods companies. FNB is seeking to tap into a market that it estimates could consist of as many as 1 million enterprises that have largely been ignored and falls into the “unseen economy,” the Johannesburg-based ...

Bloomberg Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and his colleagues are likely to turn more wary about marching interest rates higher after delivering a widely anticipated quarter percentage-point increase in December. Prospects for slowing global economic growth, fading US fiscal stimulus and volatile financial markets all argue for more caution once officials lift rates next month near or into neutral territory, ...

Bloomberg The Bank of England (BOE) may need to increase interest rates at a quicker pace than currently envisaged by markets, according to policy maker Michael Saunders. Spare capacity in the economy has been used up, and, assuming Brexit reaches a smooth conclusion, inflationary pressures will probably build somewhat faster than officials predicted in their latest projections, Saunders said in ...

Bloomberg India’s government wants to discuss changes to the Reserve Bank of India’s governance structure at a board meeting next month, including setting up some oversight panels, Economic Secretary Subhash Chandra Garg told ET Now. Garg, who is a government nominee for the RBI board, told another television channel CNBC-TV18 that the administration will ask for more interim dividends from ...

Bloomberg Italy’s central bank warned that low growth and high public debt pose the greatest risks to financial stability, while further sovereign bond market tensions would hurt banks’ capital and the solvency position of insurers. In its Financial Stability Report, the Bank of Italy outlines risks arising from uncertainty about the economic and fiscal policy in the country, which led ...

Bloomberg Nigeria’s base interest rate is becoming more and more irrelevant. That’s the view of some analysts after the Monetary Policy Committee in Africa’s biggest oil producer held its key rate for the 14th straight meeting, despite inflation being above its target range of 6 percent to 9 percent for more than three years. Central bank Governor Godwin Emefiele is ...