Banking

  Bloomberg Wells Fargo is facing a multimillion-dollar film-finance fraud lawsuit, capping off a 2016 of legal woes for the banking giant. British financiers Vandermolen Film Co. and Bridgeworks Media Capital claim Wells Fargo employees conned them into funding bridge loans and they’re owed at least $14 million, according to a complaint filed in Florida state court last week. “Upon ...

  Bloomberg China Guangfa Bank Co. said on Monday that documents and seals for a letter claiming to guarantee bond payments by the lender were forged, in the second such incident in the nation this month, raising concern about transparency in the world’s third-biggest bond market. The revelation by the bank based in the southern province of Guangdong comes after ...

  JEDDAH / WAM The Islamic Development Bank (IDB) approved finances worth US$863 million for developmental projects in a number of member countries during its 316th meeting here, Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported. Out of this sum, $208 million goes to road projects in the Republic of Guinea; $170 million for the third phase of a solar generation project in ...

  Bloomberg New York rather than the European Union may be the winner from any exodus of financial services from London unless Brexit negotiators on both sides are pragmatic, UK lawmakers warned. Without early clarity on the future relationship between Britain and the EU, banks and other financial firms may set up subsidiaries and transfer workers abroad, the House of ...

  Bloomberg Relief that Deutsche Bank AG and Credit Suisse Group AG cleared legal hurdles is likely to soon give way to concern over a bigger problem: European lenders are still struggling to make money. While the combined $12.5 billion in settlements the two agreed to pay to resolve US investigations into sales of toxic debt put one dispute behind ...

  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 ...