Banking

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

Bloomberg New Zealand regulators are seeking assurances that local lenders aren’t involved in the same unethical behavior coming to light in Australia’s banking inquiry. The Financial Markets Authority and Reserve Bank spoke with the heads of New Zealand’s major banks, telling them to provide evidence that they’re not engaged in practices unearthed by a Royal Commission in Australia, an RBNZ ...

Bloomberg Nordic banks, once coveted as the best-run and best-capitalised in Europe, appear to be losing their luster. After publishing first-quarter results, banks based in Sweden and Denmark are among the year’s worst performers in the Bloomberg index of European financial stocks. In fact, you need to have been an investor in Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA or ...

Bloomberg Fast-money investors have their fingerprints all over last month’s Treasury selloff — and that may be good news for bulls hoping for a reprieve. Commodity trading advisers, who use a momentum-driven investing style, flipped from neutral to a short position in the 10-year US Treasury futures contract on April 18, helping to send the note itself racing to 3 ...

Bloomberg Mexico’s monetary authority asked about a dozen banks to take emergency measures to shore up the country’s electronic payment network after a suspected cyber attack disrupted some transfers last week. The lenders have been instructed to connect to the system via a backup method that’s seen as less vulnerable to outside intrusions, but has never before been so heavily ...

Bloomberg A rate used to price loans in Saudi Arabia climbed to the highest level since the financial crisis. But unlike 2016, it’s the race to stay ahead of Libor, and not a liquidity squeeze, that’s raising borrowing costs. The three-month Saudi interbank offered rate advanced on Tuesday to 2.38625 percent, two basis points above the London interbank offered rate ...

Bloomberg Australia’s beleaguered banks are facing up to a bleaker future. In another bad day for the industry, a scathing report released on Tuesday into the nation’s largest lender found a “widespread sense of complacency” from the top down blinded it to risks that led to a massive breach of anti-money laundering laws. And in a stark warning the good ...