Banking

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 ...

Bloomberg Three senior executives at Banco de Sabadell SA’s British unit will step down in an overhaul that the bank said is unrelated to the meltdown of its IT system earlier this year. The UK arm, known as TSB Banking Group, will see Treasurer Ian Firth, Chief Marketing Officer Nigel Gilbert and Human Resources Director Rachel Lock retire in the ...

Bloomberg Mizuho Financial Group Inc. is becoming more aggressive in chasing riskier clients outside Japan as it seeks to reverse the recent decline in its full-year profit, according to Chief Executive Officer Tatsufumi Sakai. The Tokyo-based lender may have been a “little conservative” in adjusting its asset profile towards non-investment grade assets overseas and away from lower-margin clients, Sakai said. ...

Bloomberg Australian central bank chief Philip Lowe said he’d still like to see the nation’s currency weaken further and sees interest rates remaining at a record low “for a while yet.” “It is likely to be some time before we are at full employment and the inflation rate is comfortably within the target range on a sustained basis,” Lowe said ...

Bloomberg Barclays Plc has tapped Rocket Internet SE’s chief financial officer to lead its German operations, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The British bank will soon name Peter Kimpel as head of Germany as early as next week, the people said, asking not to be identified discussing private information. He will fill a post that’s been vacant ...

Bloomberg Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc tapped Katie Murray to be its interim chief financial officer as Ewen Stevenson prepares to leave the state-controlled lender and step down from the board. Murray, who is currently deputy CFO and one of a handful of women in the City of London in a senior finance role, will take the position in ...

Bloomberg Economic growth in Nicaragua, once a top performer in the region, will slow to a crawl this year after months of violent chaos left hundreds dead and paralysed business activity. The $13.7 billion economy will expand just 1 percent this year in an “optimistic scenario” compared with an original forecast of 5 percent, Central Bank Chief Ovidio Reyes said ...

Bloomberg Investment bank Jefferies Group is reorganising its energy group, according to a letter seen by Bloomberg. Pete Bowden, the current co-head of energy banking and the leader of Jefferies’s midstream franchise, will become global head of energy, according to the letter from Ralph Eads, the chairman of the group. Guy Oliphint and Greg Chitty have been promoted to co-heads ...

Bloomberg Indonesia’s central bank raised its benchmark interest rate a fourth time since May in a surprise move aimed at underpinning the currency as volatility sweeps across emerging markets. The seven-day reverse repurchase rate was increased to 5.5 percent from 5.25 percent on Wednesday, as forecast by just seven of 28 economists in a Bloomberg survey, with the rest predicting ...

Bloomberg Canada’s largest lenders have boosted their capital enough in the past two years to withstand a 35 percent decline in housing prices in Ontario and British Columbia and 25 percent in the rest of the country, according to Moody’s Investors Service. Canada’s six biggest banks and Quebec’s Desjardins Group “incrementally improved” their capital buffers to absorb $10.9 billion in ...