Banking

Bloomberg The pound’s near-term direction is likely to be driven this week by economic data that could determine whether the Bank of England raises interest rates within three months. Traders will put most weight on UK employment figures scheduled for Wednesday, with evidence of a pickup in earnings likely to push the pound higher as it spurs inflation beyond the ...

Bloomberg Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s decision to stick with Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda indicates that powerful stimulus will continue, and the yen’s recent advance could make policy normalization even more remote. That’s the message from a Bloomberg survey of 26 economists following Abe’s nomination of Kuroda and new deputies Masayoshi Amamiya and Masazumi Wakatabe. Only three say the ...

Bloomberg The World Bank said the Philippines’ monetary policy stance is appropriate for now even as inflation is set to breach the central bank’s target this year. “Keeping the interest rate flat for now is presently the most appropriate response,” Birgit Hansl, a World Bank economist in Manila, said in an emailed response to questions last week. “If inflationary pressures ...

Bloomberg India’s state-owned UCO Bank said it has exposure of $411.8 million in the nearly $2 billion bank fraud perpetrated against Punjab National Bank, a case linked to billionaire jeweler Nirav Modi. UCO Bank’s Hong Kong branch granted loans against letters of credit issued by PNB, UCO Bank said in a filing with the Bombay Stock Exchange. Other banks, including ...

Bloomberg Authorities in Italy searched the headquarters of the country’s biggest phone carriers as part of an antitrust probe over pricing of mobile and fixed-line services. Financial police and officials from the Italian Antitrust Agency searched offices in Rome and Milan of Telecom Italia SpA, Vodafone Group’s local unit, Swisscom AG’s Fastweb, Wind Tre and industry lobby Asstel, the regulator ...

Bloomberg Martin Gilbert and Keith Skeoch’s $1 trillion dream has grown a little more distant. Six months after merging Scotland’s two biggest money managers to create a giant capable of competing with the largest US companies, the co-chiefs of Standard Life Aberdeen Plc are instead digesting the potential loss of almost 20 percent of the funds at their asset-management business. ...

Bloomberg Latvian central bank Governor Ilmars Rimsevics was detained by the country’s anti-corruption bureau, the prime minister said in a statement on Sunday. The government has full trust in the work of the anti-graft body and won’t interfere in its work, according to the statement sent by the office of Premier Maris Kucinskis. No further details on the reason for ...

Bloomberg As the European Union pushes for a new role in military matters, the bloc has thrust its development bank into the center of a policy struggle that reveals an old fissure over the very nature of the EU project. The European Investment Bank (EIB) is getting prodded to be bolder about lending to defense companies by a France-led group ...

Bloomberg Credit Agricole SA is seeking to sell about 6 billion euros ($7.5 billion) of Italian non-performing loans bought from other institutions a decade or more ago, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The French bank is trying to offload its holdings in four different bad-loan securitizations, along with the Luxembourg-based entity that issued them, said the people, ...

Bloomberg US Bancorp agreed to pay about $600 million to settle US allegations that it failed to guard against money laundering, under a deal announced in New York. Prosecutors said the Minneapolis-based bank failed to report suspicious activities of a longtime customer, Scott Tucker, who was using the bank to launder proceeds of a fraudulent payday lending scam. Tucker was ...