Banking

Bloomberg Mexico’s central bank Governor Alejandro Diaz de Leon reinforced the bank’s tight monetary policy stance, saying there was far too much uncertainty over US trade talks and persistently high inflation to change course now. While acknowledging the impact high interest rates have on already sluggish economic growth, the central bank sees an even larger cost if it doesn’t anchor ...

Bloomberg The Bank of England is holding off from forcing most European banks operating in the UK to become subsidiaries, but says it’s ready to get tougher if progress towards a Brexit deal breaks down. Governor Mark Carney told lawmakers in London that making lenders and insurers go through the process of setting up subsidiaries, only to then reverse course ...

Bloomberg ANZ Bank New Zealand said the country’s Overseas Investment Office has declined the application of China’s HNA Group to acquire UDC Finance. “While the sale agreement between the parties remains in place, unless HNA successfully overturns the OIO decision, the sale will not proceed,” ANZ New Zealand Chief Executive David Hisco said in a statement. “We don’t know if ...

Bloomberg Bank of America Corp. Chief Executive Officer Brian Moynihan said the lender is pushing to deepen some of the busin-ess it conducts in China as the world’s No. 2 economy opens further to foreign investment. The US bank is working towards “local incorporation” in China so that it can more easily help firms there sell debt, Moynihan said in ...

Bloomberg An inflation rate that’s breached India’s target and growth that continues below potential will probably prompt the cen-tral bank to keep interest rates unchanged through the coming year. The benchmark repurchase rate will stay at 6 percent until at least the first quarter of 2019, according to most economists in a Bloomberg survey published this month. While swap markets ...

Bloomberg Sweden’s central bank formally ended a program of bond purchases after almost three years, but pledged support for the nation’s debt market into 2019 in a step designed to ensure a smooth retreat from record stimulus. In the Stockholm-based Riksbank’s last meeting of 2017, policy makers kept their key interest rate unchanged at minus 0.5 percent, as expected by ...

Bloomberg Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is likely to ask Governor Haruh- iko Kuroda to lead the Bank of Japan for another five years, according to a Kuroda associate and BOJ adviser. “I expect Kuroda will continue to be governor,” Masahiro Kawai said in an interview. The chances are “very high” because both Abe and Finance Minister Taro Aso have expressed ...

Bloomberg Bangladesh is getting tough with the nation’s bankers as it attempts to avert a looming crisis caused by rising bad loans and weak capital ratios. The central bank said it ousted the chief executive officer of Farmers Bank, a small private-sector lender, accusing him of “gross irregularities in lending.” That followed the removal earlier in the month of the ...

Bloomberg Having subdued Australia’s housing market frenzy, Governor Philip Lowe now has to steer his way through the hangover. Despite being saddled with record household debt and wretched wages growth, Australia’s economy is showing signs of picking up steam, with hiring on a tear and firms investing. The dual narratives have prompted the central bank to sit still on record-low ...

Bloomberg Central bankers around the world have set up or are creating departments to embrace big data in the quest for deeper insight into the economies they manage. “Isaac Asimov once said, ‘I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them,’” David Hardoon, chief data officer at the Monetary Authority of Singapore, said in a recent speech. “We ...