Banking

Bloomberg The divide between the haves and the have-nots among Nigerian banks is widening. The country’s biggest lender is so flush with cash it plans to repay $400 million of bonds when they become due in November 2018 rather than raising additional debt, while the next two largest banks sold international bonds for the first time since 2014. At the ...

Bloomberg Greece’s larger banks can take a leaf out of Attica Bank’s playbook. While the country’s four big banks are struggling to shrink their non-performing exposures (NPEs), smaller lender Attica Bank has become Greece’s first to turn to securitization as a way to both shrink its bad loans and close a capital shortfall. The Athens-based bank is using the services ...

Dubai / Emirates Business Noor Bank, a leading Shari’a-compliant bank in the UAE, on Monday announced that it has notched up several prestigious wins at the Banker Middle East Product Awards 2017 and at the Banker Middle East Industry Awards 2017, organised by CPI Financial’s renowned Banker Middle East magazine. Noor Bank won Best Corporate Account for its escrow account ...

Bloomberg Liberbank rebounded in Madrid trading after regulators prohibited short selling of the Spanish lender in the wake of a stock plunge last week. The shares jumped as much as 31 percent, the most since the bank’s 2013 debut, and were up 28 percent priced at 86.8 cents as of 10:06 a.m. The stock dropped 41 percent last week after ...

Dubai / Reuters Bahrain’s central bank ordered banks operating in the kingdom to freeze assets and bank accounts of the Qatar-linked 59 individuals and 12 entities that a group of Saudi-led Arab countries have accused of links to terrorism, the state news agency BNA reported in a statement. The move came after Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and Bahrain, who ...

Bloomberg Global bank regulators have been toiling for a decade on capital rules intended to help prevent another financial crisis. Now they’re within touching distance of a final deal, with one main obstacle standing in their way: France. The U.S. and Europe have long been at loggerheads over measures to stop banks from gaming the capital rules known as Basel ...

Bloomberg Deutsche Bank said it can’t comply with a request to hand over information related to its relationship with Donald Trump and trades from the bank’s Moscow operation as political opponents seek to probe the US President’s links with Russia. The lender is required by law to maintain confidentiality of non-public customer information, Deutsche Bank lawyers said in a letter ...

DUBAI / Reuters Shares in Qatari banks fell in early trade on Sunday after the central bank of the United Arab Emirates ordered UAE banks to be wary of any accounts they hold with six Doha-based banks. The UAE, as part of its response to the diplomatic rift in the region, told local banks to apply ‘enhanced due diligence’ to ...

Dubai / Emirates Business Pakistan’s largest bank Habib Bank Limited (HBL) announced its strategic retail analytics programme in collaboration with Qarar, UAE’s leading decision analytics consultancy. With this comprehensive programme in place, HBL will be one step ahead of the industry by utilizing advanced applications and behavioural scorecards developed for the Bank by Qarar. Both organizations have shared an enduring ...

Bloomberg As dawn broke in Madrid, Ana Botin embarked on the boldest move of her almost three-year tenure as chairman of Banco Santander, Spain’s largest bank. Botin, better known for accumulating capital and emphasizing internal growth than doing deals, took a page from her late father’s playbook. She agreed to acquire failing Banco Popular Espanol SA for the knockdown price ...