Banking

Bloomberg The economist tipped to be Mexican President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s first central bank board nominee said he expects policy makers to cut the key interest rate starting next year given the outlook for slowing inflation and growth. Policy makers have room to ease even as the Federal Reserve tightens, Jonathan Heath, a former chief economist at HSBC Holdings ...

Bloomberg Bonds traders were fast to cheer the Reserve Bank of India for keeping rates on hold. The gains may prove fleeting. While the central bank surprised by keeping borrowing costs unchanged, it changed its stance to “calibrated tightening” from neutral, signaling more hikes lie ahead. Add to that concerns about soaring oil prices and the tumbling rupee, investors are ...

Bloomberg South Africa will strive to allow competition into its banking system in a way that won’t threaten the stability of the industry as more and more entrants seek to rival the nation’s biggest lenders, said Kuben Naidoo, the chief executive of the Prudential Authority. While many new banking licenses are expected to be granted, these would be done within ...

Bloomberg India’s central bank stared down the rupee’s slide to a record low, opting to keep interest rates unchanged as it flagged risks to the economy from global monetary policy tightening, trade wars and surging oil prices. In a surprise decision, the monetary policy committee led by Governor Urjit Patel voted 5-1 to leave the repurchase rate at 6.5 percent. ...

Bloomberg The Estonian laundromat scandal has been on Danske Bank A/S investors’ radar for more than a year. But last week, everything changed. News of a US Department of Justice investigation has caused panic. The bank’s shares were dumped and some bondholders are even wondering whether Danske might start having trouble making interest payments on its riskiest debt. At Swedish ...

Bloomberg China’s central bank cut the amount of cash lenders must hold as reserves for the fourth time this year, as policy makers seek to shore up the economy amid a worsening trade war. The People’s Bank of China lowered the required reserve ratio for some lenders by 1 percentage point, effective from October 15, according to a statement on ...

Bloomberg Things are likely to get worse for Italian bonds before they get better. That’s the message from HSBC Holdings Plc after Italy’s government decided last week to set its 2019 budget deficit target at 2.4 percent, roiling markets. That has prompted Chris Attfield, a fixed-income strategist at the bank, to revise wider his year-end forecast for the yield spread ...

Bloomberg A global bond selloff has sent Japan’s benchmark yield to a level last seen when the central bank introduced its negative interest-rate policy in January 2016 to revive a weakening economy. The 10-year yield rose two basis points to 0.155 percent, after a rout in Treasuries that saw similar-maturity US yields jump to the highest level since 2011. The ...

Bloomberg Greece is weighing a plan to help banks speed up their bad-loan disposals, possibly including a government guarantee, in a bid to restore confidence in the battered sector, people familiar with the matter said. While the details are still being worked out, the proposal would see lenders unload some bad loans into special purpose vehicles, taking them off banks’ ...

Bloomberg After lenders in Germany have already slashed about 188,000 jobs since the year 2000, many employees are now increasingly seeing digitalisation as the next big threat to employment. In the country’s private banking industry alone, around 40 percent of employees believe that digitalisation will worsen long-term job security over the next two years, according to a study by the ...