Banking

Bloomberg Commerzbank AG’s long search for scale is finally starting to pay off, but it’s costing more than expected. Profit and revenue at Germany’s second-largest listed bank beat the highest estimate in the second quarter, as it expanded its business more aggressively. However, its core capital level dropped surprisingly, due to it taking on more risk in its corporate loan ...

Bloomberg Credit Suisse Group AG hired private banker Heinz Puth and three others from Swiss rival Julius Baer Group Ltd. to boost its Singapore team focussing on wealthy Indonesians, according to a person familiar with the matter. Puth and the former Julius Baer relationship managers will report to Johanes Oeni, who heads Credit Suisse’s private banking market group for Indonesia, ...

Bloomberg Australia’s securities regulator will embed supervisors in the big-four banks in a push to get tough on corporate misbehaviour after a string of scandals. Australian Securities & Investments Commission (ASIC) staff will be placed inside Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Westpac Banking Corp., National Australia Bank Ltd., Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. and embattled wealth manager AMP Ltd. ...

Bloomberg Danske Bank A/S’s legal jeopardy is deepening. Prosecutors in Denmark said they had opened a criminal investigation into the bank, acting on “multiple complaints” that the Estonian unit of the country’s biggest lender was used to funnel billions of kroner of dirty money. The prosecutors said that they had been following “the case very closely” for a long period ...

Bloomberg Nedbank Group Ltd. forecast that interest-earning banking assets will increase at a rate below that of nominal growth in South Africa’s gross domestic product, after earlier predicting it will be in line with the economy’s expansion. The lender’s credit-loss ratio, which rose 6 basis points to 53 basis points, will also increase slightly above the level achieved in 2017 ...

Bloomberg Facebook Inc.’s shares rose on optimism that the company is forging deeper relationships with banks to offer customer-service products via its Messenger chat application, a business that could boost engagement as growth slows on its main social network. Facebook has for years worked to make Messenger a natural place for consumers to communicate with businesses, aiming to replace email. ...

Bloomberg Iran’s central bank, acting on the eve of US sanctions, scrapped most currency controls introduced this year in a bid to halt a plunge in the rial that has stirred protests against the government of President Hassan Rouhani. Under the measures, the central bank will allow the market to determine the rate of foreign-exchange transactions except the imports of ...

Bloomberg HSBC Holdings Plc posted one of the worst equities-trading revenue performances among global banks in the second quarter amid an overall slump at its markets business. Revenue from stock trading at the Asia-focused bank fell 17 percent to $279 million, according to a company presentation. US banks posted a 14 percent average increase for the period and some of ...

Bloomberg Absa Group Ltd. forecast that its return on equity, a measure of profit, will improve slightly this year, helped by the South African lender’s operations in the rest of the continent. While costs will improve by the end of the year, expenses are still likely to grow faster than income, the bank said. Absa, which rebranded from Barclays Africa ...

Bloomberg Romania unexpectedly left borrowing costs unchanged, looking past the European Union’s fastest inflation as the economy cools. The National Bank of Romania kept its benchmark interest rate at 2.5 percent on Monday. Three of 18 analysts in a Bloomberg survey predicted the decision, while 15 saw a quarter-point increase. Governor Mugur Isarescu was expected to hold a briefing in ...