Banking

Bloomberg China’s banks, scrambling to adjust to the government’s deleveraging campaign, are likely to add to pressures on the corporate bond market as they shed more of their massive note holdings and de-risk their balance sheets. Further payment problems are likely in a market that has already seen at least 14 corporate bond defaults this year, according to Logan Wright, ...

Bloomberg Italian bank UniCredit SpA is considering a merger with France’s Societe Generale SA, a move that would combine two of Europe’s largest financial institutions, the Financial Times reported. UniCredit Chief Executive Officer Jean Pierre Mustier, who is French and once worked for SocGen, has been developing the idea for several months, the FT said, citing people close to the ...

Bloomberg Commonwealth Bank of Australia has agreed to pay the biggest civil penalty in Australian corporate history, after admitting to more than 53,000 money-laundering law breaches that allowed drug syndicates to funnel millions of dollars offshore. The nation’s largest lender will pay A$700 million ($530 million) to bring to an end the 10-month saga, which led to the departure of ...

Bloomberg Indian lenders are raising interest rates even before any central bank action as the strongest loan demand in four years amid weak deposit growth pressures funding costs. State Bank of India, ICICI Bank Ltd. and Punjab National Bank are among the nation’s biggest banks that increased their benchmark lending rates last week. The Reserve Bank of India, on the ...

Bloomberg JPMorgan Chase & Co. won the title of world’s largest currency trader by market share, ending Citigroup Inc.’s four-year run at the top, according to a Euromoney Institutional Investor Plc survey that featured a new methodology. JPMorgan took a 12.1 percent share, up from 10.3 percent last year. UBS Group AG came in second with 8.3 percent, and XTX ...

Bloomberg Bubbling tensions between the world’s top two economies over tariffs pose no bar to diving into Chinese stocks, unless a full-blown trade conflict breaks out, according to Deutsche Bank AG. The US is on course to release its final list targeting $50 billion of Chinese imports with tariffs by June 15, with the levies taking effect soon after. And ...

Bloomberg The Bank of Japan cut purchases of bonds for the first time since February, taking advantage of a global slide in yields brought on by political risks in Europe and trade tensions. The BOJ trimmed buying of debt maturing in the five-to-10 year zone by 20 billion yen ($183 million) to 430 billion yen at the regular operation. While ...

Bloomberg Wells Fargo & Co. customers who didn’t consent to having 3.5 million accounts created by bankers trying to hit sales quotas are finally getting what a judge called “rough justice.” US District Judge Vince Chhabria agreed to issue final approval for a $142 million class-action accord that will pay an average of $35 for account holders at the center ...

Bloomberg Indonesia’s second interest-rate increase in two weeks may be followed by more policy tightening to stem a slide in the rupiah amid an ongoing rout in emerging markets. While the rupiah strengthened for a fifth day, the central bank isn’t in the clear yet. Much will depend on geopolitical events — from snap elections in Italy to ongoing trade ...

Bloomberg Eurobank Ergasias SA may issue new bonds in 2018 and is also crafting a new plan to reduce its exposure to bad loans for period after 2019. The Athens-based lender issued a covered bond in 2017, its first return to debt capital markets since 2014. “We’re considering issuance of another covered or senior bond during the course of 2018,” ...