Banking

Reuters Austria’s Oberbank will sign a deal with Iran this month enabling it to finance new ventures there, its chief executive said, among the first European lenders to do so since sanctions were eased. The deal Tehran struck in 2015 with six major powers lifted many sanctions in exchange for restrictions on its nuclear activities and technically paved the way ...

Bloomberg Australia’s banking regulator will probe whether cultural, governance and pay structures contributed to a string of scandals at Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA). The inquiry, commissioned after allegations the country’s biggest lender repeatedly breached anti-money laundering laws, will focus on identifying any internal shortcomings at the bank and make recommendations for change, the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority said. A ...

Bloomberg China’s central bank will effectively remove a reserve requirement for trading foreign currency forwards—a move that may slow the pace of yuan appreciation after its biggest two-week surge in at least a decade— according to people familiar with the matter. Effective September 11, the People’s Bank of China will stop requiring financial institutions to set aside cash when buying ...

Bloomberg As Hurricane Irma approaches Florida, lenders including Wells Fargo & Co. and Bank of America Corp. are making plans to move a small number of mobile teller machines into the state to provide some customers with much-needed cash amid expected power failures. Two Wells Fargo trucks equipped with automated teller machines that were destined for Texas have been rerouted ...

Bloomberg Mario Draghi’s silence on the future of quantitative easing is complicating a key aspect of the European Central Bank’s policy process. The ECB president and his colleagues typically back up shifts in strategy with their economic projections, which are based on market indicators that include expectations for future policy. Except that less than four months before the current asset-purchase ...

Bloomberg The Bank of Japan should stop being obsessed with its 2 percent inflation target given prices and interest rates around the world remain subdued, says the former currency chief at the Ministry of Finance. The world’s third-largest economy has recovered enough for the central bank to scale back stimulus policy to give itself some room to maneuver should conditions ...

Bloomberg K. Balasubramanian, group head for corporate banking at HDFC Bank Ltd., is leaving India’s most valuable bank to return to his previous employer Citigroup Inc., according to people familiar with the matter. Balasubramanian, 46, will join the corporate banking team as a Mumbai-based managing director for the New York-based lender, the people said. Representatives for both banks declined to ...

Bloomberg A planned shake up of Australia’s consumer price index could result in a significant paring of inflation expectations. Westpac Banking Corp. economist Justin Smirk has run the numbers on how the statistics bureau could revise its inflation basket to bring it up to speed with the latest spending patterns and technological changes. Lower core inflation could keep benchmark rates ...

Bloomberg A longtime Morgan Stanley broker and financial adviser pleaded not guilty to trading on secret tips about pending mergers and acquisitions leaked by a Bank of America Corp. consultant. Michael Siva, 55, got the information from a close friend, James Moodhe, whose daughter was dating the consultant at the centre of the case, Daniel Rivas, prosecutors said in an ...

Bloomberg Two years after Chinese policy makers devalued the yuan, an act that torpedoed global markets, traders are starting to view the currency as a sure bet. The yuan has surged 3.9 percent to be the best performer in Asia this quarter, while momentum indicators are near the highest since 2005. Typical risk-off events seem only to heighten demand for ...