Banking

Reuters Kazakhstan’s financial centre expects the government to issue Islamic bonds, or sukuk, in coming months as part of efforts to develop Islamic finance business in the central Asian country, an official said on Tuesday. Final legislative changes to allow issuance of sovereign sukuk are nearly complete, alongside registration of a special purpose vehicle by the Ministry of Finance, said ...

DUBAI / Reuters Egypt’s EFG Hermes is considering adding 20 percent more staff as one of the region’s biggest investment banks expects an improved deals outlook in Saudi Arabia by the second half of the year, a senior executive told Reuters. “There is massive interest in Saudi, but you will find that a lot of people are looking at it ...

RIYADH / Reuters Saudi Arabia’s central bank said it would no longer offer repurchase agreements for seven-, 28- and 90-day periods, after short-term Saudi money market rates fell below US rates for the first time in nine years. In a brief statement, the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency said it no longer needed to use the instruments and aimed to preserve ...

DUBAI / Reuters The Lebanese central bank’s dollar reserves climbed by $1.4 billion in the first two months of the year and its total assets in dollars exceeded $43 billion, recovering from a decline during a political crisis at the end of last year, its governor said on Tuesday. Governor Riad Salameh said political conditions in the country had “returned ...

Bloomberg Amazon.com Inc. wants to appeal to more cashless customers, like tech-savvy millennials, while trying to cut its transaction expenses, copying a strategy set by PayPal Holdings Inc. The e-commerce giant is in talks with JPMorgan Chase Financial Co., Capital One Financial Corp. and other banks about creating new online accounts, according to two people familiar with the matter. The ...

Bloomberg The Bank of Japan has the tools to eventually exit its record monetary easing without disrupting markets, according to Masayoshi Amamiya, a nominee for one of the two deputy governor positions at the central bank. The BOJ can adjust bond yields in a stable manner when the time comes for it to start normalizing its policy, Amamiya said at ...

LONDON / Reuters The Islamic Development Bank (IDB), the largest development organisa-tion in the Muslim world, will launch a $2.5 billion benchmark-sized sukuk, its largest since inception, “soon”, its president Bandar Hajjar said on Monday. Speaking at a sukuk conference at the London Stock Exchange Hajjar said the sukuk would support spending on infrastructure, education and health. The IDB is ...

Bloomberg Barclays Plc’s attempts to scale up its cash management business in India via a tie-up with the country’s post office are starting to bear fruit, according to the UK bank’s local corporate banking head. The deal with the 164-year-old mail service, first agreed in 2015, allows Barclays to offer its cash management services via some 8,000 postal branches spread ...

Bloomberg Nigeria’s long-awaited interest rate-cutting cycle risks being short-lived, if it starts at all. Governor Godwin Emefiele said last month the Central Bank of Nigeria may reduce its benchmark from a record-high 14 percent before July if inflation drops closer to single digits. But with fuel costs surging and government spending swelling before next year’s election, he may struggle to ...

Bloomberg How have the mighty fallen. A year ago foreign funds including Franklin Templeton Investments were piling into Indian bonds. A record-long slump has now prompted the nation’s biggest bank to say enough is enough. India’s 10-year bonds dropped for a seventh month in February, the longest-losing streak in data compiled by Bloomberg starting in November 1998. Government-run lenders such ...