Banking

Bloomberg One under-appreciated indicator is flashing red for some developed markets, Goldman Sachs analysts say. The private-sector financial balance — an economy’s total income minus the spending of all households and businesses — has proven more powerful in predicting crises than the current-account balance, Goldman analysts led by Jan Hatzius, the bank’s global head of economics, wrote in an August ...

Bloomberg Pound investors hoping for a turnaround anytime soon could instead face more turbulence. The UK’s and the European Union’s plan to negotiate Brexit continuously from now on suggests there will be more political headlines, potentially fueling volatility, according to strategists at Royal Bank of Canada and Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. With UK markets shut for a ...

Bloomberg Nordea Bank AB has recently lost a number of its top sell-side bankers amid complaints that management’s focus on cutting 6,000 jobs is hurting morale in key parts of the business. Examples of recent departures include the head of fixed income at Nordea Markets, Torben Pedersen. He’s in the process of starting his own hedge fund with Erik Bo ...

Bloomberg The Bank of Thailand is giving the baht — the most-loved emerging-market currency this month — one more reason to keep up its outperformance. Piggybacking on a strong current-account surplus, the baht has braved developing-market doldrums and topped returns among 24 currencies tracked by Bloomberg. It is also the sole gainer in Asia this quarter. As investors await the ...

Bloomberg The People’s Bank of China and Federal Reserve delivered a one-two punch to the dollar, spurring the biggest selloff in a month and raising the specter of further weakness ahead. The PBOC announced that banks would resume using the “counter-cyclical” factor when calculating the yuan’s daily reference rate, restraining the influence of market forces that have been driving the ...

Bloomberg A discussion of competition and “superstar” firms at an exclusive economic policy conference in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, threw up a spirited defense of global trade, while central bankers were also warned of the low level of trust they enjoy among the public. “We should think twice about undermining the discipline of openness” and the competition that’s created by global ...

Bloomberg Banks in the UK may face an unexpected hit to their finances from British regulators if there’s no Brexit deal, further quashing hopes that they can carry on with business as usual. The Treasury in London said banks won’t be able to treat debt issued by European Union governments as risk-free once the nation withdraws from the bloc. That ...

Bloomberg The European Central Bank’s (ECB) search for a new watchdog to oversee one of the world’s biggest banking systems has its first candidate: the Irish central bank’s deputy governor, Sharon Donnery. Irish Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe confirmed Donnery’s application, the day submissions to lead the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) were due to close, saying that she’s an “exceptional candidate.” ...

Bloomberg UniCredit SpA, Italy’s biggest bank, climbed in Milan trading after a report that it had hired an adviser for a possible merger with France’s Societe Generale SA, a deal rumored already two years ago. Talks between the lenders to study integration and acquisition possibilities have been continuing, Italian financial newspaper MF reported, without citing anyone. UniCredit appointed Daniel Bouton, ...

Bloomberg National Australia Bank Ltd. and Commonwealth Bank of Australia may face criminal charges over multiple breaches of the law in their treatment of pension customers, an inquiry into misconduct in the financial industry has been told. The two lenders faced particular criticism in a 200-page closing statement by counsel assisting the inquiry Michael Hodge following 10 days of evidence ...