Banking

Bloomberg Ghana took back control of Agricultural Development Bank Ltd. (ADB) after the regulator annulled deals for more than half of the lender’s shares following its initial public offering in 2016.Belstar and Starmount are affiliates and entered into deals with SIC and Ecobank Capital Ltd., the asset management unit of Ecobank Ghana Ltd., to purchase ADB’s shares without the regulator’s knowledge, ...

Bloomberg Indonesia’s central bank left its benchmark interest rate unchanged after three hikes in a row helped to stabilize the currency in Southeast Asia’s biggest economy. The seven-day reverse repurchase rate was held at 5.25%, in line with forecasts of 25 of 28 economists surveyed by Bloomberg. Governor Perry Warjiyo said the policy stance remains “hawkish” with the central bank’s ...

Bloomberg Bank of Japan (BOJ) Governor Haruhiko Kuroda stuck to the bank’s playbook, declining to comment on reports that policy makers are considering measures to soften the side effects of their aggressive monetary easing campaign. Remarks on the issue wouldn’t be appropriate given the proximity of the bank’s monetary policy meeting, Kuroda said, adding that any policy decision will require ...

Bloomberg Lloyds Banking Group Plc may set aside hundreds of millions of pounds in the second quarter to compensate customers improperly sold payment protection insurance as claims continue to flood in. The redress costs will add to about 18 billion pounds ($23 billion) already booked by Britain’s biggest mortgage lender since the start of the scandal. Analysts at Morgan Stanley ...

Bloomberg The European Union’s bank-failure rules are forcing Austria’s Volksbanken to open up the lending tap, a strategy reminiscent of the one that nearly brought down the cooperative group a few years ago. The irony has arisen because the EU requires banks to have sufficient loss-absorbing liabilities on their books to cover the costs of their restructuring and refinancing in ...

Bloomberg China’s banks are being offered cash and given instructions to lend more, as regulators attempt to support a slowing economy. The banking and insurance regulator has asked financial institutions to “earnestly implement” plans to help reduce financing costs for small firms, saying that big lenders should “take the lead”, according to a statement posted on its website. Meanwhile, the ...

Bloomberg The economy of South Korea, which is very reliant on China, may see more adverse impact than previously expected from China’s plan for deleveraging, the Bank of Korea said in a report on Sunday. South Korea’s gross domestic product growth could be 0.3 percentage point less than expected in 2018 and maybe 1.2 percentage point less in 2020 because ...

Bloomberg In the high-stakes drama of soured loans and failed investment banking ambitions that is European finance, Sergio Ermotti has a problem others would love to have: His UBS Group AG is starting to look a little dull. Seven years after a sweeping revamp of the bank, whose tilt toward wealth management became a blueprint for rivals, the chief executive ...

Bloomberg Banks are going even more mobile. US Bancorp this week was the latest to say it will build a nationally available checking-account product as lenders introduce mobile offerings that let consumers do their full banking without a branch. The move follows similar announcements by some of the country’s largest banks including JPMorgan Chase & Co., Citigroup Inc. and PNC ...

Bloomberg The Nordic region’s biggest bank reported profit in the second quarter that exceeded market estimates, and committed to a forecast that it will make more money in 2018 than it did last year. Nordea Bank AB saw net income grow to 1.09 billion euros, just beating the 1.05 billion-euro estimate in a Bloomberg survey of analysts, according to a ...