Banking

Bloomberg Increasing investment by firms in technology means the UK’s abysmal productivity growth should soon start to recover, according to a Bank of England (BOE) staff blog. A shortage of skills and labour is acting as a catalyst for firms to introduce productivity-boosting technology such as automation, said Will Holman and Tim Pike, who work in the central bank’s division ...

Bloomberg India’s central bank may increasingly be turning to the currency futures market to stem a slide that sent the rupee to a record low last month, according to analysts and traders. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI)  probably intervened to the tune of $2.5 billion in May — the highest for any month so far this year — and ...

Bloomberg JPMorgan Chase & Co. denied a report in German magazine WirtschaftsWoche that it’s interested in acquiring a stake in Deutsche Bank AG, after the lender’s share price slumped. The New York-based bank and Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd. were named as being interested in an investment because Frankfurt will increase in importance after Brexit, the magazine said, ...

Bloomberg Credit Suisse Group AG agreed to pay $77 million to settle US bribery probes claiming the lender’s Hong Kong unit attempted to win banking business by offering jobs to friends and family of Chinese officials. The bank over seven years tried to hire more than 100 employees at the request of government officials in the Asia-Pacific region, resulting in ...

Bloomberg SEB AB, one of Sweden’s biggest banks, is on a hiring spree to burnish its technology credentials as more financial services go digital. Chief Executive Officer Johan Torgeby says SEB is hiring as many as “1,400-1,500 people a year right now,” or “about 100 per month.” The bank is taking on people “mainly in new technology, computer scientists, new ...

Bloomberg Danske Bank A/S’s Estonian operations may have been used to launder as much as $8.3 billion in a case that has rocked Denmark and triggered calls for tougher penalties from the country’s political establishment. The amount, which represents roughly a third of Danske’s market value and almost 3 percent of Danish GDP, is more than double that previously estimated, ...

Bloomberg Bahrain hired investment bank Lazard Ltd. to advise on how to repair its strained public finances, according to people with knowledge of the matter, as the island kingdom seeks to secure crucial support from rich neighbors to avoid a currency devaluation. Lazard is helping Bahrain evaluate fiscal reforms to help ease pressure on the state’s budget, the people said, ...

Bloomberg China’s central bank is caught in a bind, as it seeks to tighten monetary policy for some parts of the economy while loosening it for others. Already engaged in the mammoth task of wringing bad debts out of China’s $40 trillion-plus financial system, the People’s Bank of China is now attempting to achieve that while simultaneously being asked to ...

Bloomberg Just 20 banks have applied for a license to operate in the European Union in time to receive approval before Britain leaves the bloc. The European Central Bank has talked with 50 financial companies exploring options to retain the so-called passport that grants them access to one of the world’s largest economies, said Pentti Hakkarainen, a member of its ...

Bloomberg The UK Serious Fraud Office has dropped a criminal investigation into Lloyds Banking Group Plc and its former traders over Libor rigging, according to a newspaper report. Investigators concluded there was insufficient evidence to take the matter further in respect of former traders and the bank, The Times reported, without saying where it obtained the information. The SFO has ...