Bloomberg HSBC Holdings Plc said its 5-year-old deferred prosecution agreement with Department of Justice has expired, signaling the US is satisfied with the bank’s improvements to its compliance systems after it was ensnared in a money-laundering scandal in Mexico. The Justice Department will file a motion with a court in the Eastern District of New York seeking the dismissal of ...
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ECB topping up QE once more with short taper in late 2018
Bloomberg The European Central Bank will spend 2018 guiding its bond-buying program to a gentle halt as the euro zone benefits from the most-synchronized economic growth in two decades, according to a Bloomberg survey. Policy makers, who have already agreed to halve monthly purchases to 30 billion euros ($35 billion) starting next month, will taper them to zero in the ...
Read More »Labour debates moving Bank of England operations to Birmingham
Bloomberg The Labour Party is debating moving some of the Bank of England’s operations to Birmingham if it wins power in the next general election. The plans, first reported by the Financial Times and confirmed by the UK’s main opposition, are aimed at spreading investment across the country. They’re based on an analysis by the economist Graham Turner of GFC ...
Read More »IMF: China’s banks need to raise capital buffers after credit boom
Bloomberg China’s banks should increase their capital buffers to pro- tect against any sudden economic downturn following a credit boom, the International Monetary Fund said. In its first comprehensive assessment of China’s financial system since 2011, the IMF recommended “a gradual and targeted increase in bank capital.†In a worst-case scenario, IMF stress tests suggested the country’s lenders would face ...
Read More »BofA, Citigroup to advise on $3bn IPO of ICICI brokerage arm
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 »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 ...
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