Banking

Bloomberg The Bank of Baroda’s South African unit has been in possession of the “proceeds of crime” linked to a dairy farm project that involved the politically connected Gupta family, said Thato Ntimutse, a lawyer for the National Prosecuting Authority’s Asset Forfeiture Unit. While India’s Bank of Baroda has tried to stop the state from freezing 30 million rand ($2.5 ...

Bloomberg For all his influence on the wider European economy, Mario Draghi is finding out that he has little sway in fixing a much more local problem. Almost two weeks after a member of his Governing Council was briefly detained for bribery and extortion, the European Central Bank president still has few options available to address a lingering crisis that ...

SYDNEY / Reuters A first sale of green Islamic bonds by Indonesia could help open the door for more crossover deals across Asia, as religious and environmentally-minded investors find a middle ground in the sukuk funding format. Last week, Indonesia became the first Asian sovereign to sell green sukuk, raising $1.25 billion via a five-year deal, alongside a $1.75 billion ...

Islamabad / Reuters Pakistan’s capital market regulator has drafted governance rules that cover sharia-compliant companies and securities, the latest government initiative aimed at develo- ping the country’s Islamic finance industry. The move by the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) marks the first time a regulator has defined comprehensive requirements for companies that deem themselves to be compliant with ...

Bloomberg The swings are getting bigger in stocks, and the divide is getting wider among people whose job is to forecast them. Bank of America (BofA) strategists led by Michael Hartnett say they see another correction coming, similar to the one in early February when about $6 trillion was erased globally. This year’s turbulence is part of a topping process ...

Bloomberg Norway lowered the central bank’s inflation target after policy makers struggled to meet the goal, going against the grain in a global debate where many have called for levels to be raised to allow more room to support economies. The government reduced the target to 2 percent from 2.5 percent, bringing it in line with other central banks such ...

Bloomberg If Mario Draghi had to design the way his colleagues get picked, it would probably be a bit different from how it is now. The European Central Bank president twice stopped short of praising the process for board appo- intments — aside from a mention of safeguards to independence — when asked this week about how his future vice ...

Bloomberg The chief of India’s biggest bank called for an industry-wide review of risk controls in day-to-day operations, comparing a $2 billion fraud at one of his rivals to the 1995 Barings Plc rogue trading debacle that ended the 233-year-old British merchant bank’s independence. “The Punjab National Bank fiasco is something similar to the fall of Barings Bank, where one ...

Bloomberg Jerome Powell opened the door to the Federal Reserve raising US interest rates four times this year as he acknowledged stronger economic growth may prompt policy makers to rethink their plan for three hikes. “My personal outlook for the economy has strengthened since December,” the Fed chairman said in response to a question about what would cause the central ...

Bloomberg JPMorgan Chase & Co is the most profitable bank in US history. It expects to keep that title with help from the Fed and Donald Trump. Higher US interest rates engineered by the Federal Reserve and lower corporate taxes spearheaded by the Trump administration translate into about $7 billion more in pretax profit in coming years, JPMorgan said in ...