Bloomberg ICICI Securities Ltd., a unit of India’s largest private-sector lender by assets, has picked arrangers for an initial public offering that could value the company at more than 200 billion rupees ($3.1 billion), people familiar with the matter said. The brokerage arm of ICICI Bank Ltd. selected Bank of America Corp (BofA) and Citigroup Inc. to advise on the ...
Read More »Banking
Bankers in Scandinavia say new Basel rules hit them unduly hard
Bloomberg The financial industries of Sweden and Denmark were quick to criticise the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision’s completed framework, arguing it will hit Scandinavian lenders too hard. “The Basel standards will, if they are fully implemented in the EU and Sweden, have large negative effects for Swedish banks, their clients and the Swedish economy,†Hans Lindberg, the head of ...
Read More »Wealth management robot at Danske Bank has 11,500 clients
Bloomberg In just over half a year, Danske Bank A/S has attracted 11,500 clients to an investment service provided by a robot. Denmark’s biggest financial firm now hopes the project will help it expand its wealth management operations. The robot is called June. It targets retail clients and small businesses that normally wouldn’t have the resources to work out what ...
Read More »RBS CEO sees lesser chance of DOJ settlement this year
Bloomberg Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc Chief Executive Officer Ross McEwan said the likelihood is waning that the lender will settle a US mortgage-bond probe before the end of the year as he’d hoped, though it’s well-capitalised to handle a settlement. “There are diminishing chances†the bank will settle with the US Department of Justice in 2017, “but this ...
Read More »Banks emerge winners from final post-crisis capital rules
Bloomberg Banks emerged relatively unscathed from global regulators’ final batch of post-crisis capital rules, with few lenders needing to raise major new funds. The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision on December 7 issued new rules on how banks estimate the risk of mortgages, loans and other assets. The compromise, reached after fierce lobbying by the industry, will cause “no significant ...
Read More »PBOC to hold rates after Federal hike
Bloomberg The People’s Bank of China will refrain from raising open-market interest rates even if the US Federal Reserve decides to increase borrowing costs next week, according to a Bloomberg survey. More than 80 percent of 32 economists, analysts and traders said that the PBOC will maintain its current rates on reverse-repurchase agreements, which guide the cost of funding in ...
Read More »Nordea Bank targets 500 bankers in Finland job cuts
Bloomberg Nordea Bank AB will approach about 500 employees in Finland as it starts acting on a program announced in October to cut thousands of jobs. The biggest Nordic bank will ax about 420 jobs and move another 50 to Estonia and Poland, Nordea said on its website. The reductions are equivalent to about 6 percent of its workforce in ...
Read More »Good times for credit finally end next year, says Societe Generale
Bloomberg The great credit party that’s taken yield premiums in major markets down around lowest in a decade is probably months away from an end, as central banks normalise monetary policy and the economic outlook softens, Societe Generale SA predicts. “We expect next year to be a transition year, when the ultra-low yield environment finally starts to lose its grip,†...
Read More »Brexit gives Barclays headache as fewer employees exit
Bloomberg Jes Staley’s latest problem at Barclays Plc? Not enough people want to leave. The bank has seen a decline in staff voluntarily leaving in the aftermath of Brexit, which managers are attributing partly to fears their positions may be relocated if they switch to a rival less tied to London, according to people familiar with the trend. The lower ...
Read More »India holds rates as inflation nears central bank’s target
Bloomberg India’s central bank kept interest rates unchanged as rebounding inflation limits room to spur an economy struggling to recover from disruptive government policies. The benchmark repurchase rate was left at 6 percent, the Reserve Bank of India said in a statement in Mumbai on Wednesday. Five of the six-member monetary policy committee voted for the move, which was predicted ...
Read More »