Banking

Bloomberg Emilio Saracho’s plan to turn around Banco Popular Espanol SA has become a struggle for survival. Just four months after the former JPMorgan Chase & Co. banker took charge, the troubled lender is exploring ways to bolster its cash and short-term funds and may request additional central bank loans, a person familiar with the matter has said. Expansion newspaper ...

Bloomberg The World Bank (WB) kept its outlook for the global economy unchanged, forecasting a modest pickup in growth despite uncertainty about monetary policy and the risk of a surge in protectionism. The development lender projects the world economy will grow by 2.7 percent this year and 2.9 percent the next, the same as its January forecast. “Global activity is ...

Bloomberg Ireland’s drive to recoup money from the bank rescue that almost bankrupted the nation is finally gaining pace. The Irish government started the process of selling 25 percent of Allied Irish Banks Plc, (AIB) after spending 21 billion euros ($23.5 billion) bailing out the lender following the 2008 financial crisis. In comments aired on Wednesday, Finance Minister Michael Noonan ...

Bloomberg JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon said China has made “huge progress” on market reforms and he would like to increase his firm’s businesses in the nation. The New York-based JPMorgan is hoping to get a corporate bond license in China and would consider another joint venture in Asia’s biggest economy, Dimon said in an interview ...

Bloomberg The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) has surprised many with its tolerance for market pain as it squeezes leverage in parts of the financial system. But rest assured, China won’t clamp down so hard it endangers President Xi Jinping’s goal to keep growth above 6.5 per cent, according to economists from Morgan Stanley, Mizuho Securities and Oxford Economics. “Some ...

Bloomberg A month can be a long time in economics. Since the Reserve Bank of Australia’s (RBA) last policy decision on May 2, market bets on an interest-rate cut by the end of this year have doubled. While that chance is still only about 20 percent, swaps traders see Australia as one of just two developed economies where cuts are ...

Bloomberg In the era of negative interest rates, Japan’s second-largest bank finds itself having to run just to stand still. Takeshi Kunibe, who took over as chief executive officer at Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc. (SMFG) in April, has set a new net-income target of about 700 billion yen ($6.3 billion) in the year ending March 2020. That’s roughly the ...

Bloomberg Banco Popular Espanol SA is reviewing how to bolster liquidity drained by deposit withdrawals and a deterioration of its credit, according to people familiar with the matter. The Madrid-based bank, racing to sell assets and find a buyer, plans to meet on Tuesday with the European Central Bank to discuss options, the people said, asking not to be identified ...

Bloomberg Bank of Singapore, which recently broke into the ranks of Asia’s top 10 private banks, intends to keep hiring more relationship managers and focus on serving a wealthier bracket of customers to keep expanding its assets under management. The unit of Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp. added 20 relationship managers in Hong Kong this year, taking its total to slightly more ...

Bloomberg Kenyan lenders must adjust their business models to adapt to a new era of lower profits as interest-rate caps curb investor returns, Central Bank of Kenya Governor Patrick Njoroge said. Return on equity in the Kenyan banking industry declined to 13.6 percent in March from 18.2 percent in June, Njoroge told reporters in the capital, Nairobi. For the country’s ...