Bloomberg Scandals, bad debts, ATM cash shortages — India’s banking system has experienced them all in recent months and the bad run is starting to have repercussions for both the broader economy and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. India’s nearly $1.7 trillion formal banking sector is coping with $210 billion of soured or problem loans, and some regional banks have been ...
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Saudi top bank to drain liquidity to counter Libor rise
Bloomberg Saudi Arabia’s central bank plans to drain excess liquidity from the banking system to mitigate pressure on the riyal’s peg to the dollar as US interest rates rise, Governor Ahmed Abdulkarim Alkholifey said. The Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority, as the central bank is known, will allow some deposits placed with commercial banks in 2016 to mature without rolling them ...
Read More »Mauritius bank building ‘strong’ Kenya presence
Bloomberg SBM Holdings Ltd., owner of Mauritius’s second-biggest bank, said it expects to be one of Kenya’s largest lenders within a year after acquiring part of Chase Bank Kenya Ltd., while remaining open to more deals in the country. The purchase, signed off by Kenya’s central bank last week, will increase competition among lenders in East Africa’s biggest economy, where ...
Read More »UK’s Hammond willing to look abroad for next BOE governor
Bloomberg UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond has indicated a willingness to look abroad when he begins his search for a successor to Bank of England Governor Mark Carney. Canadian-born Carney is due to step down at the end of June 2019 after becoming the first foreigner to run the UK central bank in its three centuries. Hammond declined ...
Read More »Techcombank set to price $922mn IPO at top end
Bloomberg Techcombank, the Vietnamese lender backed by Warburg Pincus, and some existing investors are poised to raise about 21 trillion dong ($922 million) in a domestic ini- tial public offering, people with knowledge of the matter said. The bank is planning to price the sale of 164.1 million shares at 128,000 dong each, the top end of a marketed range, ...
Read More »Latvia secures US help to clean up its scandal-tainted banks
Bloomberg Latvia’s financial investigators will receive more US help as the Baltic nation races to emerge from a money-laundering scandal that toppled its third-largest lender. Finance Minister Dana Reizniece-Ozola has agreed technical assistance from the US Treasury Department for the country’s financial intelligence unit following her meetings with US officials in Washington. She doesn’t expect other Latvian institutions to follow ...
Read More »World’s central banks fret trade war more deflationary than inflationary
Bloomberg Global central bankers sounded the alert that a trade war would leave them worrying more about the economic fallout than any boost tariffs would give to inflation. As President Donald Trump threatens to impose levies on imported steel and aluminum and duties on as much as $150 billion of Chinese goods, uncertainty over global commerce is casting a pall ...
Read More »Japan bank falls most since 1975 over faked documents report
Bloomberg Suruga Bank Ltd., the worst-performing bank stock in Japan this year, tumbled the most since 1975 after the Asahi newspaper reported that it gave property investment loans based on faked applications. Real estate companies provided the regional bank with documentation for loan applications that had been falsified to make borrowers look more creditworthy than they were, the Asahi reported. ...
Read More »World Bank edges near $13bn capital boost
Bloomberg The World Bank won support from its member countries for a $13 billion capital increase, with the US dropping its objection as the lender imposes measures that would potentially reduce loans to China. The boost will be accompanied by internal steps “including operational changes and effectiveness reforms, loan pricing measures, and other policy steps,†the World Bank said in ...
Read More »â€˜New Zealand bank culture better than Australia’
Bloomberg New Zealand’s banking sector doesn’t share the cultural problems that are coming to the surface at an inquiry into misconduct in Australia’s financial industry, Reserve Bank Governor Adrian Orr says. “The true problem and challenge going on in Australia is cultural,†Orr said in an interview on Television New Zealand’s Q+A. New Zealand bank culture “is infinitely better than ...
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