Banking

Bloomberg Euro-area banks probably won’t restore their profits to the peaks seen before the 2008 financial crisis, according to the European Central Bank. The squeeze on profits has resulted from factors including tougher capital requirements put in place since the crisis and banks’ shying away from riskier businesses, the ECB said. Still, firms need to earn an “appropriate return” on ...

Bloomberg Thailand’s central bank left its benchmark interest rate unchanged near a record low as expected, with the prospect of a future tightening increasing as more monetary policy committee members dissented. Five of the seven committee members at the meeting voted to hold the one-day bond repurchase rate at 1.5 percent, where it’s been since 2015, according to the Bank ...

Bloomberg India’s central bank has enough reserves to defend the rupee, according to the State Bank of India and Nomura Holdings Inc., as the currency shrugged off the government’s supportive measures to plunge to a fresh record. The Reserve Bank of India can sell an additional $25 billion, at least, in the foreign-exchange market, SBI estimates, based on intervention patterns ...

Bloomberg Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. recently hired Morgan Stanley to help sell its stake in Indonesian lender PT Bank Pan Indonesia, according to people with knowledge of the matter. ANZ, which has long been seeking to divest its Bank Panin holding, plans to start gauging interest again from potential private equity and strategic buyers, the people said, ...

Bloomberg India’s plan to merge state-controlled lenders as a way to resolve its bad-debt issue didn’t thrill investors. The proposed union of Vijaya Bank and Dena Bank with Bank of Baroda fanned speculation of further consolidation in the sector. While some state-run lenders rose on Tuesday, most fell on concerns about eroding capital buffers and growing bad debt for buyers. ...

Bloomberg Royal Bank of Canada is getting ready to sell the country’s first bail-in eligible senior securities. The bank held a call with fixed-income investors to discuss the legal framework for the securities, according to people who had access to the call. Canadian lenders will be able to start issuing the new securities after September 23, when the bail-in framework ...

Bloomberg China’s ever-growing money market funds pose an increasing problem for the nation’s central bank as policy makers attempt to boost the flow of credit to cushion an economic slowdown. While the funds have offered savers a handy alternative to risky stocks and once high-flying wealth management products, they’re effectively raising borrowing costs. That’s because, with some 8.6 trillion yuan ...

Bloomberg Dena Bank surged the most in 10 years after India’s government announced a plan to combine the state-owned lender with two peers including Bank of Baroda to strengthen the debt-laden banking system. The stock jumped by the 20 percent limit to 19.1 rupees in Mumbai, while Bank of Baroda slumped as much as 14 percent amid concern the merger ...

Bloomberg Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc. agreed to pay as much as $6.2 billion to end a long-running price-fixing case brought by merchants over card fees, the largest-ever class action settlement of an antitrust case. The total is in line with sums the two companies previously set aside to cover the costs of the litigation, including $5.3 billion already held ...

Bloomberg Live Oak Bancshares Inc., the online lender whose headquarters is in flood-ravaged Wilmington, North Carolina, is still operating after it sent employees fanning out across the country ahead of Hurricane Florence. “Everything is in the cloud and our employees, really what they need is an internet connection somewhere,” said Thomas Hill, the bank’s chief information officer. “It was a ...