Banking

Bigger bets on pound poised to come back into play

Bloomberg After a quiet start to January, this week could see bigger bets come back into play on the pound. With the UK Parliament returning from recess and a slew of data, investors will be looking to put on fresh sterling positions, according to Neil Jones, head of currency sales at Mizuho Bank Ltd. Despite lingering Brexit uncertainty and a ...

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Romania surprises with first rate hike in a decade

Bloomberg Romania unexpectedly raised borrowing costs for the first time in almost a decade as inflation bounces back and its economy expands at one of the continent’s quickest paces. The central bank lifted its benchmark interest rate to 2 percent from a record-low 1.75 percent on Monday, according to an emailed statement. The move was predicted by five of 15 ...

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Fed’s Harker sees two 2018 rate hikes amid yield-curve concern

Bloomberg The US central bank should take its time before raising interest rates again to avoid inverting the yield curve and because inflation is still low, said Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia President Patrick Harker. In remarks during the annual meeting of the American Economic Association in Philadelphia, Harker also revealed a dovish rate call for 2018: two hikes instead ...

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China foreign-exchange reserves extend gains amid capital controls

Bloomberg China’s foreign-exchange reserves posted an 11th straight monthly increase, capping a year of recovery amid tighter capital controls, a stronger yuan and resilient economic growth. The reserves climbed $20.7 billion to $3.14 trillion in December, according to a People’s Bank of China statement on Sunday, compared with a $3.13 trillion median estimate in a Bloomberg survey. That brought the ...

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‘Dollar must always act as a global funding tool’

Bloomberg The dollar’s status as the world’s most popular funding currency is stronger than ever, helping to push the greenback lower even in the face of bullish drivers such as the US tax overhaul and higher short-term bond yields. A buoyant global economy is encouraging borrowing in dollars by overseas corporations and governments, overwhelming the domestic forces, according to Morgan ...

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Drop in complaints is silver lining for Wells Fargo in 2017

Bloomberg Wells Fargo & Co. spent much of 2017 trying to dig out of several consumer banking scandals. By one measure, it’s making progress. Complaints lodged against the lender with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau through Dec 15 dropped 18% from the same period of 2016, the steepest decline among major banks, federal figures show. Still, it remained first among ...

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Greece’s 10-step road map to a bailout program exit in August

Bloomberg For Greece, 2018 is a crucial year. The key question in the months ahead for what was once the epicenter of the European credit crisis is: Will it turn the corner and wean itself of external aid like Ireland, Portugal and Cyprus — something the Greek government wants? Or, will the current bailout program, which ends August 20, be ...

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Euro-area inflation slowdown undermines calls to end QE

Bloomberg European Central Bank policy makers who marked the turn of the year by pushing for an end to crisis-era stimulus measures just got a reminder that they’ll have to wait a while longer for price pressures to pick up. Despite solid economic growth, euro-area inflation slowed to 1.4 percent last month from 1.5 percent, and the underlying rate unexpectedly ...

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Canadian banks expect drop in unemployment to raise interest rates

Bloomberg All but one of Canada’s six biggest commercial lenders now say the central bank will raise interest rates this month after the jobless rate dropped to its lowest in modern records. Toronto-Dominion Bank, Ba-nk of Nova Scotia, Royal Bank of Canada and the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce changed their forecasts after a Statistics Canada report showed the unemployment ...

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