Banking

  Bloomberg The World Bank Group’s private-sector arm is divesting its holdings in one of Myanmar’s largest banks nearly two years after a military coup, according to the lender’s largest shareholder. First Myanmar Investment Co has agreed to buy the International Finance Corp’s 4.5% stake in Yoma Bank Ltd, according to Tun Tun, FMI’s executive director and chief operating officer. ...

  Bloomberg India’s largest private bank HDFC Bank Ltd is seeking to issue a million credit cards a month, a remarkable bounce-back for the lender after the country’s regulator banned it from taking on new card clients two years ago. The bank wants to double the current pace of half a million new credit card issuances every month, according to ...

Bloomberg Limits on banker bonuses led to pay rising for top British financiers, according to a study by the Bank of England (BOE) released as part of the UK’s plans to abolish the rules. The restrictions, designed to curb risky behaviour following the 2008 financial crisis, have meant fixed salaries increased to offset the curbs — particularly the delay in ...

Bloomberg European Central Bank (ECB) Vice President Luis de Guindos said increases in borrowing costs will continue at a pace similar to the latest half-point move as officials try to tame soaring prices. The ECB will raise interest rates until projections show that unprecedented euro-area price gains are headed back to the 2% target, Guindos told an event in Madrid. ...

  Bloomberg US equities are set for their worst year since the global financial crisis, and, according to Morgan Stanley strategist Michael Wilson, corporate profits are about to meet the same fate. A looming earnings recession “by itself could be similar to what transpired in 2008/2009,” said Wilson. That could spark a new stock-market low that’s “much worse than what ...

  Bloomberg Initial public offerings are heading for their longest drought since the global financial crisis — and bankers don’t expect a revival anytime soon. A mix of rising inflation and interest rate hikes aimed at taming it have hurt stock market valuations and eroded investor appetite for the high-growth IPO candidates that have driven deals in recent years. Just ...

  Bloomberg Bitcoin dropped back below $17,000 and several smaller cryptocurrencies referred to as altcoins posted significantly steeper declines as concern increases that the digital-asset market’s woes are far from over. The largest token dropped as much as 3.7% to $16,762. Bitcoin reached its highest price since Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto empire filed for bankruptcy last month. Ether declined as much ...

Bloomberg A cofounder of the OneCoin pyramid scheme pleaded guilty to his role in the global, multibillion-dollar fraud. Karl Sebastian Greenwood admitted OneCoin, which he founded in 2014 with Ruja Ignatova, the so-called “Cryptoqueen,” was based on a phony cryptocurrency. Greenwood, who was arrested in Thailand in 2018 and extradited to the US, pleaded guilty to three criminal counts of ...

  Bloomberg The Bank of Japan (BOJ) in the coming week is widely expected to stick with the negative interest rates that set it apart from the world’s other major central banks. At the decision due on Tuesday, Governor Haruhiko Kuroda will reiterate his out-of-sync stance that monetary stimulus must stay in place to secure lasting inflation. That’s in contrast ...

  Bloomberg Wall Street banks’ interest in crypto has significantly fallen off as digital-asset prices have tumbled, according to a top US financial regulator. “A lot of the crypto curiosity went away,” Michael Hsu, acting head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, said in an interview at Bloomberg’s Washington bureau. “I would be astounded if a lot ...