Banking

Bloomberg China plans to ban trading of bitcoin and other virtual currencies on domestic exchanges, dealing another blow to the $150 billion cryptocurrency market after the country outlawed initial coin offerings. The ban will only apply to trading of cryptocurrencies on exchanges, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be named because the information is private. ...

Bloomberg Traders who have placed bullish bets on the pound may find their nerves tested this week, with sterling likely to buffeted by everything from Brexit to the Bank of England. Sterling posted its biggest weekly gain versus the dollar since June, benefiting from a falling dollar after dovish comments from Federal Reserve officials and ongoing tensions with North Korea. ...

Bloomberg Egypt’s inflation eased in August, signaling that the surge in prices after the government’s latest round of subsidy cuts may have peaked. The annual rate for urban areas dropped to 31.9 percent in August from 33 percent in the previous month, according to data released by the official statistics agency on Sunday. Prices rose 1.1 percent on the month, ...

Bloomberg European Central Bank Executive Board member Benoit Coeure warned that the rising euro could depress inflation unless it’s offset by a strengthening economy, bolstering the case for keeping monetary policy loose for an extended period. “Exogenous shocks to the exchange rate, if persistent, can lead to an unwarranted tightening of financial conditions with undesirable consequences for the inflation outlook,” ...

Bloomberg India’s inflation is seen accelerating in the final reading on consumer prices before the central bank decides on interest rates next month, complicating matters for Governor Urjit Patel amid increasing evidence that economic growth is weak. Consumer prices probably rose 3.24 percent in August from a year earlier, according to the median of 36 estimates in a Bloomberg survey ...

Bloomberg Here’s something else for policy makers to worry about as they attempt to engineer a soft landing in Australia’s property market. The country’s lenders could be sitting on $402 billion of “liar loans,” or mortgages obtained on inaccurate financial information, according to an estimate from UBS Group AG. A survey by the firm of 907 Australians who took out ...

Bloomberg The White House is considering more than a half-dozen candidates to be the next head of the Federal Reserve, including economists and business people, with a goal of filling out a depleted board with expertise ranging from financial regulation to community banking, according to three people familiar with the matter. The breadth of the search goes against the narrative ...

Bloomberg New York’s banking regulator ordered Habib Bank Ltd. to pay $225 million and surrender its license to operate in the state, effectively removing Pakistan’s largest lender from the US financial system. Managers in Habib’s branch office in Manhattan failed for more than a decade to shore up weak anti-money-laundering controls and sanctions compliance, New York’s Department of Financial Services ...

Bloomberg The rally in Indonesian bank stocks may be nearing an end amid sluggish credit growth and tougher regulations for loan quality assessments. Equity analysts are now downgrading banking stocks after the Jakarta Finance Index rallied 21 percent this year—more than double that of the main gauge—as they expect nonperforming loans in the $527 billion industry to creep up again. ...

Bloomberg Nordea Bank AB’s relocation from Stockholm to Helsinki in pursuit of a friendlier regulatory environment is drawing expressions of dismay from some of Sweden’s highest-ranking officials. Stefan Ingves, the governor of Sweden’s Riksbank and the chairman of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, called the decision “dangerous for everyone in the Nordics and Baltics” if Nordea’s intention was to ...