Banking

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 ...

Bloomberg JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s head of global banking, Carlos Hernandez, said companies are only just beginning to “test out the limits of what is possible” for new stock sales and deals, driven by the strength of the world economy. “If economic fundamentals continue as they are now, next year the price of equities will continue to increase, the size ...

Bloomberg A US regulator agreed to let Barclays Plc pay $105 million to resolve claims that the bank manipulated western US electricity markets, avoiding a trial over a proposed record penalty more than four times as high. The deal ends a court battle over a $470 million fine by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission tied to an alleged scheme in ...

Bloomberg British pay packets are starting to pick up as the availability of workers declines, according to a network of businesses across the country monitored by the Bank of England. Pay growth has edged up recently and is expected to be somewhat higher in 2018 than this year, the BOE said in its Agents’ Summary. Settlements next year will likely ...

Bloomberg Credit Agricole SA’s slump in third-quarter trading revenue rivaled that of Societe Generale SA as the French lender paid for its focus on bond markets. Sales from trading fell 28 percent to 462 million euros ($535 million), Credit Agricole, based in a Paris suburb, said in a statement on Wednesday. It posted one of the weakest trading quarters of ...