Bloomberg JPMorgan Asset Management is preparing for a rough year ahead in financial markets, and is taking to the higher-quality ground of short-dated Treasuries. Escalating trade tensions will likely be “the single most important issue moving global markets†in 2019, as they were in 2018, analysts wrote in a report on the outlook for the coming year. A deeper trade ...
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StanChart weighs restructuring to cut costs
Bloomberg Standard Chartered Plc is weighing a plan to simplify its structure as the emerging markets lender looks to control costs across its sprawling network from Zambia to Macau, said people familiar with the matter. The London-based bank, which operates in about 60 markets, is exploring how to free up liquidity and reduce funding expenses within its different legal entities, ...
Read More »Austria’s ECB stance must change: central bank VP
Bloomberg Austria’s designated next central bank governor Robert Holzmann should argue for a tighter monetary policy in the European Central Bank’s policy-making body, according to the country’s new central bank vice president. Barbara Kolm, an economist appointed to the institution’s non-policy oversight body by the nationalist Freedom Party, told Austrian daily newspaper Die Presse in an interview that she’s “hoping ...
Read More »Banks are vying for dominance in Europe’s east
Bloomberg European banks are vying for dominance in one of the continent’s most dynamic corners. Governments in parts of eastern Europe, where growth is outpacing the euro area, are loosening their grip on state-held assets. Serbia and Slovenia are the latest to offer stakes in their banks, opening up a potential battlefield as OTP Bank Nyrt of Hungary, Vienna-based Raiffeisen ...
Read More »Greece’s Eurobank attempts revival in $8bn bad-loan sale
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 ...
Read More »QE end isn’t reduction of stimulus: ECB’s Praet
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 ...
Read More »Correspondent banks in crosshairs over Danske crisis
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 ...
Read More »The era of easy-money draws to close
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 ...
Read More »FirstRand’s FNB to tap fintech to connect traders
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 ...
Read More »Fed primed for 2019 pause as growth, market volatility swirl
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, ...
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