Banking

Bloomberg Canadian banks are scoring back-to-back record earnings, beating big US lenders on profitability, productivity and dividend yields. They still can’t outperform US banks on the stock market. Toronto-Dominion Bank, Royal Bank of Canada and the nation’s other six large lenders collectively boosted profit 10 percent to a record $8.9 billion in the fiscal third quarter. Still, that’s no match ...

Bloomberg India’s rupee owes its tag of Asia’s worst-performing currency this year to the selloff sweeping emerging markets. There’s more pain in store from beyond its borders. While foreign currency debt has zoomed, various external vulnerability indicators paint a rather mixed picture, according to the Reserve Bank of India’s annual report. Indeed, data due as early as next week will ...

Bloomberg The prospect of Bank of England (BOE) governor Mark Carney extending his term of office garnered mixed reactions from UK lawmakers. Carney told Parliament that he would be open to lengthening his tenure for a second time to help the UK’s transition out of the EU. The Financial Times reported later that he will stay until 2020 in a ...

Bloomberg Westpac Banking Corp. agreed to pay a A$35 million ($25 million) civil penalty after admitting it breached responsible-lending laws by failing to properly assess whether some customers could afford to repay their mortgages. In a settlement ahead of court, the regulator said in a statement that Westpac’s automated loan approval system had failed to use customers’ actual living expenses ...

Bloomberg Russia’s central bank is setting the stage for an increase in interest rates as a weakening ruble fans inflation. Just five months after it stopped easing monetary policy, the Bank of Russia raised the prospect of its first hike in borrowing costs since 2014. The country’s latest bout of currency weakness is combining with a worsening outlook for inflation ...

Bloomberg The European Union won’t rush to enhance market access for financial firms outside the bloc, a senior German official said, pushing back against key UK government demands in the Brexit negotiations. Expanding EU “equivalence” rules, which can open the single market to non-EU firms, to new areas such as banking is unlikely anytime soon, said Levin Holle, director general ...

Bloomberg Indonesia’s central bank is intensifying its fight to protect the nation’s currency and bonds with a slew of measures that includes more hedging tools. Bank Indonesia plans to soon introduce overnight index swaps and interest-rate swaps to widen its pool of hedging tools for investors, exporters and banks. The central bank will also start offering a one-month tenor foreign-exchange ...

Bloomberg Australia kept interest rates at a record low on Tuesday, as it has for the past two years, while a currency sliding towards 70 US cents offers the prospect of additional stimulus for the economy. As expected, Reserve Bank Governor Philip Lowe left the cash rate at 1.5 percent, a stance he expects will eventually tighten the labour market ...

Bloomberg ING Groep NV agreed to pay 775 million euros ($900 million) to settle an investigation by the Dutch prosecutor into issues including money laundering and corrupt practices in one of the biggest fines ever given to the country’s banks in a criminal case. The lender acknowledged “serious shortcomings” in executing customer due diligence policies to prevent financial crime at ...

Bloomberg Lloyds Banking Group Plc is planning to reorganise its commercial bank and eliminate some senior management positions to cut costs at one of its biggest divisions, people with knowledge of the company’s plans said. David Oldfield, a veteran at the bank and head of the commercial unit since last year, is leading the push to simplify the structure and ...