Banking

  Bloomberg Indonesian business tycoon Tahir is keen to gain control of PT Bank Permata, a larger rival to his PT Bank Mayapada International, as he seeks to put his lender in the ranks of the nation’s biggest banks. Tahir’s Mayapada Group wants to buy the 90 percent of Permata that is owned by Standard Chartered Plc and PT Astra ...

  ANKARA / Reuters Turkey’s central bank will stick with unorthodox measures to keep borrowing costs at five-year highs at least until inflation peaks this year, according to people familiar with its thinking, despite sharp criticism from investors. The bank has long puzzled markets with a complex system of setting policy through multiple interest rates but it ratcheted up the ...

  Bloomberg The man running Svenska Handelsbanken AB, one of Sweden’s biggest banks, sees no reason to let Brexit upend his expansion plans in the UK. Anders Bouvin, chief executive officer of the Swedish bank known for its commitment to branches in a digital age, says his strategy is proving especially effective in attracting small UK businesses looking for funding. ...

  Bloomberg Credit Suisse Group AG, which has earmarked its Swiss unit for a partial listing, could instead raise capital after its share price rebounded from a record low, according to UBS Group AG. Credit Suisse’s shares have risen more than 50 percent since their low of 9.755 francs last July, “making a capital increase a viable alternative to a ...

  Bloomberg If Mario Draghi, President of the European Central Bank, is willing to send a signal that the European Central Bank’s stimulus drive won’t last much longer, his colleague Yves Mersch has a suggestion. The time is ripe for the ECB to review its insistence that it could cut interest rates further, according to Mersch, who sits with President ...

  Bloomberg Qatar National Bank (QNB), the biggest bank in the Middle East and Africa, is turning its focus to Southeast Asia for growth after hitting expansion goals in the region earlier than planned. “Our previous target to become a Middle East and Africa icon by 2017, was achieved in 2014, so we have upscaled our aspiration to become a ...

  Bloomberg UK inflation is almost back on target. Economists forecast that consumer-price growth accelerated to 1.9 percent in January, part of an upward trend that’s expected to continue through this year. While the prediction would leave inflation just shy of the Bank of England’s (BOE) 2 percent goal, last hit in 2013, there have been upside surprises for the ...

Bloomberg BNP Paribas SA shares dropped the most since June after France’s largest bank posted earnings that fell short of estimates and cast doubt over growth in its home market. The bank tumbled as much as 5 percent in Paris trading after reporting fourth-quarter net income of 1.44 billion euros ($1.55 billion), below the 1.63 billion-euro average estimate of seven ...

  Bloomberg China’s drive to reduce financial system risks is squeezing the nation’s banks. Caught between policy makers’ intensifying efforts to raise short-term borrowing costs, and benchmark interest rates that haven’t moved since 2015, Chinese lenders have few options but to absorb much of the higher costs. The gap between the three-month Shanghai Interbank Offered Rate and the one-year lending ...

  Bloomberg Commerzbank AG reported a 5.2 percent decline in fourth-quarter profit as it set more money aside for troubled loans to the shipping industry and low interest rates continued to weigh on income from lending. Net income in the three months through December decreased to 183 million euros ($195.5 million) from 193 million euros a year earlier, according to ...