Bloomberg Thailand’s central bank left its benchmark interest rate unchanged near a record low, and said it doesn’t feel pressure to join a global wave of tightening that’s swept along some peers in Southeast Asia. Monetary policy committee members voted unanimously to hold the one-day bond repurchase rate at 1.5 percent, where it’s been since 2015, according to a Bank ...
Read More »Banking
UBS head of European M&A Brizay joins BofA
Bloomberg UBS Group AG’s head of mergers and acquisitions for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Severin Brizay, is planning to leave to join Bank of America Corp., according to people familiar with the matter. Brizay will become head of consumer and retail investment banking for EMEA at the US lender, the people said, asking not to be identified as ...
Read More »Wall Street calls time out on US dollar’s big resurgence
Bloomberg The US dollar’s resurgence is running on fumes. A short squeeze that sparked the greenback’s fastest rise in 18 months has fizzled out, according to Wall Street strategists, who warn of mounting bearish conditions for the currency: paltry domestic inflation, economic resilience overseas and the potential escalation of trade tensions. For now, call last week’s sideways move in the ...
Read More »â€˜Ugly’ India inflation puts RBI closer to rate hike
Bloomberg India’s inflation accelerated more than estimated in April, providing ammunition to hawks in the central bank to tighten monetary policy and fuelling a selloff in bonds. Consumer prices rose 4.6 percent in April from a year earlier, the statistics ministry said in a statement in New Delhi, higher than the 4.4 percent median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of ...
Read More »Credit Agricole caught in fixed-income slump
Bloomberg Credit Agricole SA’s trading revenue slumped in the first three months of the year, squeezing earnings at its investment bank. A “more difficult environment†in capital markets and a stronger euro weighed on its performance, Credit Agricole said in a statement on Tuesday. Revenue also suffered from the bank taking a more “selective†approach to employing its capital, which ...
Read More »Nigeria inflation eases for 15th month, expanding rate-cut room
Bloomberg Nigerian inflation eased for the 15th straight month in April, moving closer to the central bank’s target and expanding room for monetary-policy makers to consider trimming their key interest rate. Consumer-price growth in Africa’s most populous nation slowed to 12.5 percent from a year earlier compared with 13.3 percent in March, the Abuja-based National Bureau of Statistics said in ...
Read More »Robots challenge banks in Sweden’s $524bn savings market
Bloomberg After being challenged in the mortgage market, Sweden’s biggest banks are fending off a new wave of robots — this time in investment advice and wealth management. One of their new rivals is Optise AB, which last year began offering independent savings advice, fund data and tailor-made portfolios to retail investors via a mobile app. The company, which refers ...
Read More »Goldman eyes multibillion-dollar deal to fuel expansion in Saudi
Bloomberg Goldman Sachs Group Inc. has approached a Saudi state-owned entity about a multibillion-dollar deal, according to the bank’s chief executive officer for the Middle East and North Africa. “We’re very keen on deploying our principal capital in the region in both forms: credit and equity capital,†Wassim Younan said in an interview in Riyadh. “We continue to prospect for ...
Read More »JPMorgan: Australia bank probe could cut 8% of finance jobs
Bloomberg Australia’s banking probe could see job cuts in the finance and real estate sectors equivalent to losses during the 2008 global financial crisis, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co. JPMorgan analysts led by Sally Auld see three main channels for the Royal Commission to exert influence on the Australian economy: tighter lending standards and slower credit growth; wealth effects ...
Read More »Deutsche Bank chief vows to stay strong in Asia amid overhaul
Bloomberg Deutsche Bank AG’s new chief executive officer pledged to keep the struggling lender “strong†in Asia even as he prepares to overhaul operations worldwide. “We can only be relevant to our clients if we continue to be strong in Asia,†CEO Christian Sewing said on Monday at an investor forum in Singapore on his first visit to the region ...
Read More »