Banking

  Manama / Reuters The 23rd annual World Islamic Banking Conference (WIBC) recognized excellence within the Islamic finance and banking industry at a high profile Gala Dinner at the beautiful ART Rotana Hotel, Amwaj Islands in Bahrain. WIBC Performance Awards were granted to the top Islamic financial institutions based purely on their performance at the global, regional and national levels. ...

  Shanghai / AFP Chinese bank lending grew modestly month-on-month in November, official data showed on Wednesday, after being almost halved in October, the latest indication that the country’s economy may be stabilising. New loans extended by banks rose to 794.6 billion yuan ($115.1 billion) last month, compared with 651.3 billion yuan in October, said the People’s Bank of China ...

  Bloomberg Central Bank of Kenya officials were allegedly at the heart of fraud at the failed Imperial Bank Ltd., described by one analyst as perhaps the industry’s largest scandal in the East African nation. Imperial Bank staff for years gave central bank officials loans and even school fees in exchange for helping to hide unauthorized debt, according to a ...

  Milan / AFP Italy’s biggest bank, UniCredit, announced plans on Tuesday to slash 14,000 jobs and raise billions of euros in fresh capital as the country gets to grips with political instability and a banking crisis. The bank, one of the worst performers in European bank stress tests, confirmed it would need to seek 13 billion euros ($13.8 bn) ...

  Frankfurt am Main / AFP The ECB said it would open an inquiry after its refusal to extend a deadline for Italy’s troubled Monte dei Paschi di Siena bank (BMPS) was leaked to the media before the lender was formally notified of the decision. “An internal inquiry will be launched,” a spokesman for the Frankfurt-based European Central Bank said, ...

  DUBAI / Reuters Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ has received a licence to open a branch in Saudi Arabia, becoming the first Japanese bank to establish a presence in the kingdom. The bank, part of Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, has played a central role in the Saudi government’s recent financing activity, in April helping to arrange a $10 billion loan, ...

  Bloomberg Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce stands by its cash-and-stock bid to buy U.S. lender PrivateBancorp Inc. and is willing to wait out a market rally to complete the deal, Chief Executive Officer Victor Dodig said. “We worked long and hard at getting the right consideration in place in terms of cash and stock,” Dodig said in a Bloomberg ...

  Bloomberg Goldman Sachs Group Inc and other Wall Street banks can breathe a sigh of relief after the Federal Reserve said that it would give them more time to meet Volcker Rule requirements to unload hard-to-sell stakes in private-equity firms and hedge funds. Banks can be granted as long as five years from the current July 21 compliance date ...

  Bloomberg Deutsche Bank AG employees may have manipulated internal indexes as part of an allegedly fraudulent scheme to help Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA conceal losses, according to an audit commissioned by German regulators. The study, requested by watchdog Bafin and seen by Bloomberg, says an internal Deutsche Bank review described ‘abnormalities’ in the values of proprietary ...

  Bloomberg Credit Suisse Group AG rose in Zurich trading, leading European bank shares higher, as Chief Executive Officer Tidjane Thiam pledged to cut an additional 1 billion Swiss francs ($1 billion) in expenses and lowe- red profit targets that were seen as too ambitious. Thiam, who was updating investors after cutting more than 6,000 jobs this year as part ...