Bloomberg The chief executive officer of Danske Bank A/S has apologized for management’s failure to prevent criminals from using his firm to launder billions of dollars in illicit funds over several years. The apology follows an unusually harshly worded public reprimand by the financial regulator. The Danish government said management’s failings were “unforgivable†and the central bank warned that the ...
Read More »Banking
Deutsche Bank joins Wall Street exodus for view of Central Park
Bloomberg Deutsche Bank AG is literally leaving Wall Street, moving its New York headquarters to midtown Manhattan as the German investment bank embarks on a broad shakeup of its US operations. The company will lease 1.1 million square feet of office space at Columbus Circle, slashing its footprint in the city by 30 percent, the head of Deutsche Bank’s Americas ...
Read More »BNP Paribas, SocGen tumble after missing rebound in trading
Bloomberg BNP Paribas SA and Societe Generale SA missed out on the trading gains that boosted earnings at some of their US and European rivals in the first quarter, sending their shares tumbling. Trading income at BNP Paribas, the largest French lender, fell 15 percent as a drop in sales from fixed-income, currencies and commodities outweighed a gain in equities, ...
Read More »BOE watchers rule out May hike
Bloomberg The Bank of England will hold off increasing interest rates next week and cut its forecasts for both growth and inflation, according to economists surveyed by Bloomberg. Just three out of the 54 banks questioned expect a rate hike at the May 10 meeting, compared with about three-quarters of those asked last month. The survey also showed economists are ...
Read More »Fed officials stress soft ceiling on inflation goal
Bloomberg One of the Federal Reserve’s most senior officials and his incoming successor both said that overshooting the US central bank’s 2 percent inflation target for a time is nothing to worry about because the central bank has been below the goal for so long. “I’ve said it many times: being a little above 2 percent after being below 2 ...
Read More »Depositors line up for cash, clarity as Venezuela seizes top bank
Bloomberg Depositors started lining up outside Banesco Banco Universal’s branches in eastern Caracas, hoping to get cash — and answers — after Venezuela’s government seized the nation’s largest privately held bank. Half a dozen police officers carrying assault weapons stood outside the landmark emerald-glass headquarters of the institution known as Banesco after news of what authorities called a 90-day intervention ...
Read More »Australia holds key rate as hiring bonanza winds down
Bloomberg Australia left its key interest rate unchanged at a record low — as expected — amid the slowing of a hiring boom. Reserve Bank Governor Philip Lowe kept the cash rate at 1.5 percent, where it has stood since late 2016, as the central bank waits for inflation to strengthen. The nation’s jobs growth has declined to a three-month ...
Read More »Toronto-Dominion’s rivals employ ‘gamesmanship’
Bloomberg Canada’s big banks don’t seem keen to follow Toronto-Dominion Bank’s lead on mortgage hikes — at least not all the way. Posted mortgage rates have diverged in the past week following rate hikes by Toronto-Dominion, Royal Bank of Canada, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce and National Bank of Canada. Bank of Nova Scotia and Bank of Montreal have stood ...
Read More »StanChart nears earnings goal despite cost fears
Bloomberg Standard Chartered Plc’s Bill Winters is closing in on his return target after three years spent struggling to transform the emerging markets lender, but the bank hasn’t shaken off concerns about costs and growth. The lender posted the highest quarterly revenue of the chief executive’s tenure and warned expenses may escalate this year. Nevertheless, a 7 percent increase in ...
Read More »BofA predicts $800mn pretax charge on TruPS redemption
Bloomberg Bank of America Corp. expects to book an $800 million pretax charge in the second quarter as it redeems $3.5 billion of trust preferred securities (TruPS), eliminating much of its remaining stockpile. Trust preferred securities are equity-like debt instruments that pay interest like bonds. Banks favoured issuing them during the financial crisis because they were treated like equity, and ...
Read More »