Banking

Bloomberg Regulators need to increase their scrutiny of non-bank firms that are moving into the financial business, according to the chief executive officer of DBS Group Holdings Ltd., Southeast Asia’s largest lender. “Absolutely,” Piyush Gupta said when asked at a Bloomberg forum in Singapore whether more regulation is needed for technology and other firms that are competing with traditional banks ...

Bloomberg Stifel Financial Corp. is expanding its leveraged finance business as the firm seeks to grow in a hot corner of the credit markets. The St. Louis-based financial firm is building a new unit that will arrange and sell loans and bonds for junk-rated companies. It plans to use its own capital to underwrite deals, according to a statement seen ...

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 ...