Bloomberg Not all bankers need to fear the march of the robots. Nordea Bank AB, which last month said it will need to cut 6,000 jobs as part of a process to become a more digital firm, is now offering some insight into who’s likely to be hardest hit. Ewan MacLeod, Nordea’s chief digital officer, says customers should expect to ...
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China’s mammoth policy banks feel squeeze from bond rout
Bloomberg A $2.2 trillion superbank is feeling the pinch of China’s bond slump. The yield on China Development Bank’s 10-year bonds surged past 5 percent, bringing the rise this quarter to about 70 basis points. More striking has been the jump in its premium over government debt with a similar maturity, given that the state-owned lender is a so-called policy ...
Read More »Barclays, Lloyds dividends in focus in toughest stress test
Bloomberg UK banks are bracing themselves for their grades in the toughest round of stress tests yet, with the fate of their dividends and strategies at stake as the Bank of England models how the seven largest British lenders will cope in another crisis. On Tuesday the central bank will reveal how they fared in a scenario that includes sharp ...
Read More »Banks squeeze Indian companies harder in $207bn bad loan fight
Bloomberg Roiled by India’s high-profile corporate defaults, the nation’s lenders are tightening the screws on borrowers with stricter debt covenants and greater enforcement as the battle to curb delinquent loans intensifies. Banks are asking for collateral that may amount to one-and-a-half times the value of the debt on new loans extended and are insisting on contracts that allow loans to ...
Read More »BOE’s Tenreyro rules nothing out on interest rates in Brexit era
Bloomberg Bank of England official Silvana Tenreyro said two more interest-rate increases will probably be needed to get inflation back to target, but Brexit will be the real determinant of where policy goes next. Less than a month after the first rate hike in a decade, Tenreyro’s comments reinforce the view of other Monetary Policy Committee members that the path ...
Read More »Colombia central bank cuts frequency of rate decisions
Bloomberg Colombia’s central bank is following Chile’s example and reducing the frequency of its policy meetings to eight a year, from twelve, to give board members more time to weigh key data. The change follows “best international practices†with the policy meeting months decided in accordance with the publication of important economic statistics, central bank Governor Juan Jose Echavarria told ...
Read More »ECB leaves flexibility for bond reinvestments in its guidance
Bloomberg The European Central Bank may be willing to show greater flexibility in how it supports its economy when bond-buying stops. When policy makers extended quantitative easing to at least Septe- mber, they stipulated that money from maturing debt would be reinvested in the same country for as long as the ECB keeps adding to its holdings. In limiting that ...
Read More »Goldman faces doubts about loss rates at new online lender
Bloomberg As Goldman Sachs Group Inc. lends more money to Main Street, one question won’t go away: How many borrowers will pay them back? Goldman’s fledgling online lender Marcus, named after the company’s founder, is targeting consumers at a time when many are bracing for a downturn after eight years of economic expansion. A recent example it gave suggests the ...
Read More »China’s banks prep for bigger swings in yuan
Bloomberg While the yuan has been having its best year since 2011 against the dollar, China’s banks continue stocking up on foreign currency in a sign that they are preparing for greater swings in the exchange rate. Depository corporations — a majority of which are lenders — boosted their holdings to 5.39 trillion yuan ($812 billion) in October, up 383 ...
Read More »Mozambique Central Bank mulls Moza Banco stake sale
Bloomberg Mozambique’s central bank, whose pension fund owns 80 percent of Moza Banco SA, is considering the sale of a minority stake after it injects further funds in the failed lender, according to four people familiar with the matter. European Central Bank policy maker Benoit Coeure said he expects policy makers to change their guidance on monetary policy next year, ...
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