Banking

  Reuters Commerzbank has told customers in the Gulf it will no longer process their transactions in euros, four Gulf banking sources say, joining other big banks that cut such services after being fined for dealings with Iran. Major US and European peers have been tightening risk controls in the region after US regulators imposed billions of dollars of penalties ...

  Tehran / AFP Iran’s currency plumbed new lows against the dollar on Sunday, continuing a six-month decline that has seen the rial lose some 19 percent of its value despite the lifting of sanctions. The rial was trading at 41,300 to the dollar, down from 34,600 in June — widening the gap with the official government rate which remains ...

  Bloomberg China’s roaring bond engine is stalling heading into the New Year, posing a quandary for policy makers as they try to curb leverage while keeping economic growth on track. Bond issuance in December by Chinese companies and banks is 80 billion yuan ($11.5 billion) less than the amount of notes they must repay this month, data combined by ...

  New York / AFP European stocks and Wall Street traded nearly flat in a quiet session before Christmas, with banks topping the agenda after huge US fines and a bailout in Italy. London closed marginally higher in a half-day session, as upwardly revised data showed the British economy grew 0.6 percent in the third quarter despite Brexit jitters. In ...

  Bloomberg The silence was deafening. On the afternoon of December 9, Marco Morelli, chief executive officer of Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA, was preparing for a board meeting in the lender’s Belle Epoque-era offices in Milan when the news hit: the European Central Bank had rejected his bid for more time to raise the 5 billion euros ...

  Washington / AFP The US Justice Department sued the British financial giant Barclays, accusing the bank of massive fraud in the sale of mortgage-backed securities which contributed to the global financial crisis of 2008. Barclays was one of several major banks implicated in the crisis, along with Deutsche Bank, Royal Bank of Scotland and Credit Suisse, that so far ...

  Bloomberg Kazakhstan has extended an emergency loan to the country’s biggest bank, the first step in what could be a rescue that may reach 1.5 trillion tenge ($4.5 billion), according to people familiar with the plans. A bailout is among the alternatives under discussion between officials from Kazkommertsbank JSC and the central bank as Kazakhstan edges closer to its ...

  Bloomberg Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA will probably fail to lure sufficient demand for a 5 billion-euro ($5.2 billion) capital increase, leading to what would be the country’s biggest bank nationalization in decades, said people with knowledge of the matter. No anchor investor has shown interest in the stock sale, the Siena-based company said in a statement. ...

  Bloomberg Standard Chartered Plc plans to transfer its Thai retail-banking business to Thailand’s Tisco Financial Group Pcl next year, exiting an operation that the UK lender said lacked the scale to generate adequate returns. The net asset value is about 5.5 billion baht ($153 million), according to a stock exchange filing by Tisco on Thursday, which didn’t disclose a ...

  Bloomberg The Philippines left its benchmark interest rate at a record low as emerging nations brace for a steeper tightening path in the US. Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas kept the overnight reverse repurchase rate at 3 percent, it said in Manila on Thursday, as predicted by all 18 economists surveyed by Bloomberg. Policy makers increased inflation forecasts for 2017 ...