Banking

Bloomberg Standard Bank Group Ltd. is seeking a banking license in Senegal after opening in Ivory Coast as the lender expands in West Africa’s French-speaking countries. Africa’s largest lender, which opened in the world’s biggest cocoa producer, will focus on corporate and investment-banking clients after obtaining the license in 2016, Sola David-Borha, the Johannesburg-based company’s chief executive officer for Africa, ...

LONDON / Reuters The Bank of England should not delay raising interest rates again, one of its top policymakers said, pointing to the possibility of faster pay rises and the recent strong pick-up in the world economy. Ian McCafferty told Reuters that after lagging behind inflation for much of the past decade, wage growth might prove stronger than most of ...

FRANKFURT / Reuters Christian Sewing must quickly come up with a coherent strategy for Deutsche Bank after the retail banking veteran was promoted to chief executive of Germany’s largest lender. Sewing, 47, was appointed after a crisis meeting to discuss how to end three years of losses. He replaces Briton John Cryan who failed to meet cost targets, and his ...

Bloomberg The Bank of England may have a quiet dissenter among its ranks when it comes to the need for higher interest rates this year. In speeches, interviews and Parliament testimony, eight of the nine Monetary Policy Committee members, including Governor Mark Carney, have backed the view that tightening is warranted — and at a faster pace than previously thought. ...

Bloomberg The board of India’s ICICI Bank Ltd., which less than two weeks earlier expressed full faith in Chief Executive Officer Chanda Kochhar, is divided over whether to ask her to step down as federal authorities investigate allegations of impropriety over loans made to Videocon group, people with knowledge of the matter said. At least some outside directors are opposed ...

NEW DELHI / Reuters A special court of India’s Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) issued non-bailable warrants against two Indian jewellers who are central figures in an alleged $2 billion scam at state-run Punjab National Bank (PNB), according to a source within the investigative agency. The CBI, a federal police body, is now also questioning some officials at overseas branches ...

Reuters HSBC will seek to cut internal bureaucracy and expand investment in China’s southern region to the rest of the country, executives at the bank said on Monday, in the first hints of the strategy to be pursued by its new leadership duo. Mark Tucker, the bank’s first externally appointed chairman, told analysts and investors at a meeting in Hong ...

Bloomberg Uganda’s central bank maintained the benchmark interest rate at a record low as risks to the east African nation’s inflation outlook remain balanced. The key rate was kept at 9 percent, Governor Emmanuel Tumusiime-Mutebile told reporters on Monday in the capital, Kampala. Inflation slowed to 2 percent in March, the weakest level since 2014, and the risks to the ...

Bloomberg Barclays Africa Group Ltd., South Africa’s third-biggest bank, will split into four operating units as the lender outlines its growth strategy after the sale by its UK parent. The Johannesburg-based firm will separate retail and business banking, investment banking, wealth and insurance, and its operations in the rest of Africa, it said in a statement on Monday. Deputy Chief ...

Bloomberg Asset sales from Saudi power plants and football clubs to African energy firms are set to help deliver a bumper year for deals in the region. Investment banks expect the pace of transactions in the Middle East and Africa to gain momentum after a busy first quarter. Mergers and initial public offerings in the first three months of 2018 ...