Banking

Bloomberg UniCredit SpA bounced back from a balance-sheet cleanup and a record share sale to deliver first-quarter profit that exceeded analysts’ estimates. The shares climbed as much as 5.4 percent. Net income more than doubled to 907 million euros ($986 million) from 406 million euros a year earlier, lifted by higher revenue and lower costs and provisions, the Milan-based bank ...

Bloomberg Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp. agreed to buy National Australia Bank (NAB) Ltd.’s wealth management business in Singapore and Hong Kong, in the latest move by a Singapore lender to bolster operations serving Asia’s rich. OCBC said the business it’s buying is made up of a mortgage portfolio of about $1.7 billion and deposits of some $3.05 billion, according to a ...

Bloomberg CIMB Group Holdings Bhd. hired seven people recently at its private bank in Singapore, according to a person familiar with the matter, as it seeks to become one of the top 20 Asian players in the sector. Five of the hires have already started and the remaining two will join by September, said the person, who asked not to ...

Bloomberg Barclays Plc’s Jes Staley said he needs another six to 18 months before the bank can generate an acceptable return for investors, spelling out for the first time how long his strategy should take to bear fruit. “The group’s statutory return on equity is 9 percent, and we want to get that to 11 percent — I think we ...

  Bloomberg ING Groep NV Chief Executive Officer Ralph Hamers’s international expansion is helping the biggest Dutch lender boost profits. Net core lending increased by 5.7 billion euros ($6.2 billion) in the first quarter, as strong growth in nations including Germany more than offset a drop in Dutch consumer lending, the Amsterdam-based bank said in a statement on Wednesday. Loan ...

  Dubai / Emirates Business Egyptian banks are lifting restrictions on customers’ overseas credit card purchases, the latest indication that a foreign-currency crunch that crippled the economy is easing. State-run Banque Misr, Egypt’s second-biggest lender, is removing curbs imposed last year on purchases, while keeping limits on foreign-currency cash withdrawals, the official Middle East News Agency reported on Tuesday, without ...

  Bloomberg Ecobank Transnational Inc., Africa’s most geographically diverse lender, is betting that Nigeria’s plans for a digital revolution will increase the number of its customers in the country more than fivefold over the next five years. The bank is closing branches in the continent’s most populous nation to cut costs while using improving access to the internet to add ...

  Bloomberg The Swiss National Bank (SNB) takes its money seriously. Fresh from winning banknote of the year for its 50-franc denomination, it unveiled a new 20-franc design on Wednesday that Vice President Fritz Zurbruegg argues might be the world’s most secure bill. Red in color and based on a theme of light and culture, the new 20, made of ...

  Bloomberg Wells Fargo & Co. is poised to spread pain to the rank and file. That’s the view from analysts, who say the bank’s leadership almost certainly must announce more aggressive cost-cutting targets on Thursday when hosting an annual investor briefing. After a bogus-account scandal spooked new clients and crimped profitability, Wells Fargo will probably eliminate more branches and ...

  Bloomberg Commerzbank AG benefited from a rise in income from trading securities six months after it rolled out a strategy to scale back the business. The Frankfurt-based lender posted net income of 217 million euros ($237 million) in the first quarter, compared with 169 million euros a year earlier. That beat the 74 million-euro average of four estimates compiled ...