Banking

Bloomberg Banco Popular Espanol SA’s decade-old crisis may finally be coming to a head. For years, the Spanish lender managed to hold onto a mountain of soured real-estate loans made before the global financial crisis, tapping shareholders for new capital three times in the last five years. Now, with the stock down 98 percent from its 2007 peak and a ...

Bloomberg S&P Global Ratings raised Indonesia’s credit rating to investment grade, bringing it in line with the other two main rating companies and paving the way for more fund inflows into Southeast Asia’s largest economy. Stocks surged to a record and the rupiah advanced. The sovereign rating was lifted to BBB- from BB+ with a stable outlook, S&P said, citing ...

Bloomberg East West Banking Corp., the Philippine lender that took over some of Standard Chartered Plc’s local operations last year, plans to sell a minority stake to a strategic investor, according to people familiar with the matter. The retail-focused bank is working with an adviser to sell about a 20 percent stake, the people said, asking not to be identified ...

Bloomberg Deutsche Bank AG Chief Executive Officer (CEO) John Cryan said there are more opportunities to increase revenue this year as Europe’s largest investment bank continues its turnaround plan. “2017 is another year of restructuring even though in a better outlook,” Cryan told the bank’s shareholders on Thursday at the annual general meeting in Frankfurt. “We see better revenue opportunities, ...

DUBAI / Reuters Oman has appointed banks to arrange a global fixed income investor call ahead of a potential dollar sukuk issuance which would be the first public international sale of Islamic bonds by the Gulf state. The planned sale, expected to raise around $2 billion, would be in addition to a $3.6 billion syndicated loan that Oman is in ...

Bloomberg The European Central Bank (ECB) can’t wait too long to signal the winding down of its stimulus measures, Executive Board member Benoit Coeure warned on Thursday, citing the risk of jolting the markets. “Too much gradualism in monetary policy bears the risk of larger market adjustments when the decision is eventually taken,” Coeure said in an interview with Reuters ...

Bloomberg Both sides of Wells Fargo & Co.’s $142 million settlement over its fake-accounts scandal made last-ditch efforts to salvage the class-action pact after a federal judge voiced misgivings about some of its terms. Lawyers for the bank and customers submitted new information in an attempt to address U.S District Judge Vince Chhabria’s concerns that the deal shortchanges consumers and ...

Bloomberg The UK government sold its last remaining shares in Lloyds Banking Group Plc, bringing Britain’s biggest mortgage lender back into full private ownership almost a decade after it was bailed out in the depths of the financial crisis. The Treasury made a profit of 894 million pounds ($1.2 billion) on its original 20.3 billion-pound investment after disposing of its ...

Bloomberg Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is increasingly turning to the forwards market for currency intervention, as a banking system already flooded with cash limits its ability to act in the spot market. RBI bought $8 billion of foreign currency in the forwards market in March, latest official data released this month showed, as the rupee capped its best first-quarter ...

Bloomberg The European Central Bank (ECB) is trying to work out a key question about the road to policy normalization: what’s the speed limit? Three weeks before their next policy decision, the terms of debate between the ECB’s 25 Governing Council members over announcing and implementing an exit from unconventional stimulus have coalesced around the pace. In one camp are ...