Banking

Bloomberg Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Citigroup Inc. are finding patience pays off in China. The trio now have an advantage over some of their largest Wall Street rivals after officials in charge of the world’s No. 2 economy promised to let foreigners take majority stakes in securities firms there — raising limits that had long frustrated US ...

Bloomberg South Africa has limited space for counter-cyclical monetary policy to support economic expansion because inflation risks have increased, central bank Governor Lesetja Kganyago said. The balance of risks for growth in consumer prices is “on the upside,” with the rand weakening against the dollar, a higher oil price, and a chance that power prices will increase, he said in ...

Bloomberg Nazir Razak, chairman of CIMB Group Holdings Bhd. and brother of Malaysia’s prime minister, is helping start a regional private equity fund that will seek as much as $1 billion, people with knowledge of the matter said. Nazir will keep his role at CIMB, Malaysia’s second-largest bank, while acting as one of the fund’s five partners, according to the ...

Bloomberg A group of companies linked to South Africa’s politically connected Gupta family said the country’s banking regulator encouraged lenders to shut their accounts, broadening a battle to retain the last of their banking services. The 20 businesses, which are suing Bank of Baroda’s local unit to keep their accounts open, have now included Reserve Bank Governor Lesetja Kganyago and ...

Bloomberg China took a major step toward the long-awaited opening of its financial system, saying it will remove foreign ownership limits on banks while allowing overseas firms to take majority stakes in local securities ventures, fund managers and insurers. The new rules, unveiled at a government briefing, will give global financial companies unprecedented access to the world’s second-largest economy. The ...

Bloomberg Deutsche Bank AG expects to raise about 2 billion euros ($2.3 billion) from selling a quarter of its asset management business in an initial public offering, according to people familiar with the matter. The partial offering would value the unit at about 8 billion euros and account for substantially all the capital the bank had expected to raise through ...

Bloomberg Pakistan central bank Deputy Governor Jameel Ahmad played down concerns over the nation’s widening current account and trade deficits and said they will improve this year as exports begin to pick up and rising imports slow. “There are challenges in the form of a growing trade deficit and also its impact on the current account deficit, but when you ...

Bloomberg New Zealand Finance Minister Grant Robertson said he expects to discuss the central bank’s current focus on the 2 percent midpoint of its inflation target band once a new governor is appointed. “The most important thing for me is that we continue, and we’ve committed to, keeping the band,” he said in an interview in his Wellington office. “I ...

Bloomberg The South African Reserve Bank can provide support for the economy even as it remains focused on inflation, Governor Lesetja Kganyago said. While inflation risks remain tilted to the upside, the central bank has to consider South Africa’s challenging economic environment in setting policy, Kganyago said in a printed copy of a speech delivered to investors in New York ...

Bloomberg For Southeast Asian central banks, monetary policy tightening is coming, but just not yet. Economists predict Thailand, the Philippines, and Malaysia will hold interest rates this week, though pressure is rising for policy makers to begin laying the groundwork for rate hikes. The Philippines and Malaysia are seen as among the first in the region to move in the ...