Banking

Bloomberg Three of the UK’s biggest banks have stopped trading Qatari riyals as the Gulf state faces sanctions imposed by a Saudi-led coalition of neighboring states. Barclays Plc, Lloyds Banking Group Plc and Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc (RBS) ceased the sale and buy-back of the Qatari currency for consumers, the banks said. Officials for the banks said the ...

Bloomberg The UK Financial Conduct Authority is setting up interviews with Barclays Plc executives as part of its investigation into Jes Staley’s attempts to unmask a whistle-blower, according to three people with knowledge of the requests. The FCA is planning to interview officials including Mike Ashley, the board member who supervises whistle-blowing complaints and Chief Operating Officer Paul Compton, in ...

Bloomberg Bad debts at Indian lenders, especially state-run banks, have climbed to a 15-year high and may increase further, a central bank study showed. Under the baseline scenario in a ‘macro stress test,’ the industry’s gross bad-loan ratio may increase to 10.2 percent by March 2018 after climbing to 9.6 percent in March 2017, the highest since 2002, according to ...

Bloomberg Venezuela’s “hunger bonds” are now on the market. Goldman Sachs Asset Management, which purchased $2.8 billion of the notes issued by the nation’s state oil company in a controversial transaction in May, began selling some of its holdings over the past few days to create liquidity, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Multiple Wall Street banks are ...

Bloomberg Deutsche Bank AG, the German lender seeking to overhaul how it manages risks, made a bet on US inflation that puts the firm on course to lose as much as $60 million, people familiar with the matter said. The trade used derivative products tied to US inflation, said the people, who requested anonymity because the details aren’t public. The ...

Bloomberg South Africa’s central bank filed court papers to reverse an instruction by the anti-graft ombudsman that its mandate of protecting the value of currency be changed, saying the “reckless” proposal is harming the economy. Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane in a report earlier this month instructed parliament to start a process to change the nation’s constitution to make the central ...

Bloomberg Australia’s central bank could increase interest rates eight times in the next two years, former board member John Edwards said. The Reserve Bank of Australia is probably already considering a program of rate increases given its forecasts for inflation returning to target and economic growth to accelerate to 3 percent against a stronger global backdrop, Edwards said in a ...

Bloomberg Bank of England (BOE) Deputy Governor Jon Cunliffe helped draw the battle lines for the August interest-rate decision, saying that policy makers have time before they need to hike. While some members of the BOE’s rate-setting committee have argued that consumer-price inflation of 2.9 percent means an increase in borrowing costs from a record-low 0.25 percent is required imminently, ...

Bloomberg Four years after questioning whether global investment banks would survive the regulatory scrutiny unleashed after the financial crisis, JPMorgan Chase & Co. analysts are now singing a different tune. Investment banks are “in better shape and better managed than ever, especially in the U.S.,” analysts led by Kian Abouhossein wrote in a note to clients Monday. “Global investment banks ...

Bloomberg China’s banking regulator, which has asked local lenders to provide loan information on the country’s top deal-making companies, is examining examples of acquisitions gone awry by those firms to assess potential risks to the financial sector, people familiar with the matter said. The China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) is seeking to gauge how much risk Chinese banks face by ...