Banking

Bloomberg The next few months are going to be fun for pound traders. Sterling’s volatility left political pundits scratching their heads last week, as European Union Chief Negotiator Michel Barnier’s promise to offer the UK an unprecedented partnership sent the currency soaring more than 1 percent even though he had said it before. With both sides warning of the risk ...

Bloomberg Mid-size UK companies may have just two months to refinance before a probable Brexit squeeze in credit markets, according to KPMG. Borrowers should lock down “refinancing before the end of October,” particularly exporters exposed to sales in euros, Joe Cassidy, KPMG’s Brexit banking and capital markets lead, said in an interview. “If you’re going to rush to refinance just ...

Bloomberg With Deutsche Bank AG and Commerzbank AG struggling, a chorus of German power players is suddenly stepping up calls for national champions big enough and strong enough to support the country’s export-driven economy. In the span of a few days, leading politicians, banking regulators and even Deutsche Bank’s chief executive officer have uniformly highlighted Europe’s, and especially Germany’s, fragmented ...

Bloomberg Italy could soon find itself excluded from the heart of euro-area monetary policy for the first time in the currency’s two-decade history. European Central Bank President Mario Draghi’s eight-year term ends in October 2019 and his country has no automatic path to a seat on the Executive Board after that. Instead, its populist leaders must negotiate with the same ...

Bloomberg Shares of India’s Yes Bank Ltd. plunged after the central bank deferred approving another three-year term for Chief Executive Officer Rana Kapoor, while allowing him helm the bank for the time being. Kapoor has received the RBI’s approval to continue as managing director and CEO of the Mumbai-based lender until “further notice” from the regulator, Yes Bank said in ...

Bloomberg One emerging market has so far eluded Standard Chartered Plc Chief Executive Officer Bill Winters: Ethiopia. Winters, head of London-based Standard Chartered since mid-2015, would “love to think that there are opportunities” in Ethiopia, he said in an interview in Nairobi, Kenya. The problem is that it’s entirely closed to foreign banks. “The underlying fundamentals are pretty interesting,” said ...

Bloomberg Banks are worried that South Africa is taking a wrong turn with laws being considered by the nation’s parliament that could leave the economy worse off. “They do not seem to be the legislative underpinning of a comprehensive, implementable national economic recovery plan,” the Banking Association of South Africa (BASA) said in a statement distributed in Johannesburg. “Rather they ...

Bloomberg Union Bank of India is pulling out of the global diamond hub of Antwerp, joining a retreat of lenders from the industry, which has been hit by fraud and bad debt. The bank has given notice that it will close its branch in the Belgian port city within a year, according to Chief Executive Officer Rajkiran Rai Gundyadka. Antwerp ...

Bloomberg Standard Chartered Plc has already paid a painful penalty for secretly moving billions of dollars through the US on behalf of Iranian clients, in violation of sanctions. But a sweeping investigation has found evidence suggesting that the bank’s Iranian business was more extensive than it admitted, according to five people familiar with the matter. Now US authorities are weighing ...

Bloomberg India has asked its central bank to prepare a list of candidates for merger among 21 government-controlled lenders as it seeks to strengthen a banking system laden with bad debt, people familiar with the matter said. In a meeting this month, finance ministry officials also asked the Reserve Bank of India to suggest a time frame for the consolidation, ...