Banking

Bloomberg China is considering handing the nation’s central bank a key role in coordinating financial oversight, in order to focus efforts on reining in risk in the sector, people familiar with the discussions said. The move, to be debated as part of the fifth National Financial Work Conference due to start on July 14, would create a new office for ...

Bloomberg Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc. plans to add about 250 positions to its securities business abroad over the next three years to boost investment banking and make up for slumping loan profitability at home. The Tokyo-based bank will increase overseas headcount at its SMBC Nikko Securities Inc. unit from the current 500 by hiring and redeploying staff including bankers ...

Bloomberg When it comes to havens among currencies, the yen is the safest of them all, according to a correlation analysis by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. economists. Japan’s currency aligns most closely against corresponding moves in global risk assets in the past decade, Goldman economists led by Kevin Daly wrote in a report on Monday. They compared daily and monthly ...

Bloomberg Eleven major banks including Barclays Plc, Citigroup Inc. and UBS AG said they’ll seek ways to address the financial risks of global warming, after Bank of England Governor Mark Carney urged investors to act on the threat. The group started a pilot project to implement the recommendations of a taskforce set up by Carney to increase financial reporting standards ...

Reuters National Bank of Kuwait, (NBK) the Gulf Arab state’s largest commercial lender, reported an almost 11 percent rise in second-quarter net profit from a year earlier, it said in a statement on Tuesday. The bank said its net profit for the first half of the year jumped 9.3 percent due to higher net interest income and net income from ...

Bloomberg Australia’s central bank is relying on an obscure piece of legislation dating back to World War II to justify keeping interest rates steady: its rarely-discussed third objective of monetary policy. Traditionally, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) is seen as having a dual mandate of maintaining stability of the currency and full employment. Both goals support its aim to ...

Bloomberg Vietnam’s surprise lowering of interest rates for the first time in three years may help to support economic growth, but raises credit risks in a nation still grappling with a hangover of bad debt. The central bank reduced the refinance rate by 25 basis points to 6.25 percent and also lowered the discount rate to 4.25 percent from 4.5 ...

Dubai / Reuters Saudi Arabia will issue a local currency sukuk, or Islamic bond, this month, Saudi finance minister Mohammed Al Jadaan told Al Arabiya News on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Hamburg. The government is expected to tap both the local and international bond markets this year, depending on the level of demand and the pricing it ...

RIYADH / Reuters Morgan Stanley named a new chief executive of its office in Saudi Arabia on Monday, as the firm carries out work on high-profile deals like the initial public offering of state oil giant Aramco. Abdulaziz Alajaji was previously head of corporate banking at JPMorgan & Chase Co in the kingdom. Rival JPMorgan enjoys a strong position in ...

Bloomberg HSBC Holdings Plc is in talks to resolve a U.S. probe into its sale of toxic mortgage bonds a decade ago, according to people familiar with matter, a negotiation that could offer an early look at how the Trump Justice Department will deal with global banks. The London-based bank has had at least one meeting with the Justice Department ...