Banking

  Lisbon / AFP Chinese conglomerate Fosun will become the biggest shareholder in the ailing BCP, Portugal’s biggest private bank, by agreeing to buy a 16.7 percent stake, the two sides said Sunday. Fosun is paying nearly 175 million euros ($185 million) via a capital increase after an agreement reached on Friday. Portugal’s banking sector is saddled with debt and ...

  Bloomberg Ghana’s central bank cut its benchmark interest rate for the first time in more than five years after inflation slowed to the lowest rate since 2014. The Bank of Ghana cut the rate by 50 basis points to 25.5 percent, Governor Abdul Nashiru Issahaku told reporters on Monday in the capital, Accra. Five of the six economists in ...

  Bloomberg Shares of India’s big state-owned banks fell on the risk that the government’s recall of high-value currency notes will dent their profits. State Bank of India, the nation’s biggest by assets, declined by as much as 4.8 percent on Monday, its biggest intraday fall since Nov. 9 and the worst performance on the benchmark S&P BSE Sensex. Bank ...

  Bloomberg Iranian banks are trying to catch up with the rest of the world. After years of isolation left them with outdated practices, they’re attempting to fall in line with international standards of transparency so they can better attract business and integrate with the global industry. The central bank has instructed local lenders to set up compliance departments and ...

  DUBAI / Reuters Saudi Arabia’s biggest commercial bank cut its quote for three-month money in the interbank market in a signal that rates could fall further as a liquidity crunch in the banking system eases. Saudi interbank offered rates soared this year, pressuring companies and banks seeking to raise funds, as low oil prices slashed flows of petrodollars into ...

  Bloomberg The booming demand for hot exchange-traded funds (ETF) has finally caught up with the staid, sleepy insurance industry. US insurers are the latest group of investors to start buying ETFs en masse, with one of the fastest adoption rates among institutions. And they’re not done yet, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s Mark Snyder, who helps oversee funds ...

  Bloomberg Mario Draghi said the recovery in the 19-nation euro area isn’t yet strong enough to deliver sustained reflation, and current monetary support will be a “key ingredient” for the economic outlook in coming years. “We do not yet see a consistent strengthening of underlying price dynamics,” the European Central Bank president said in a speech in Frankfurt on ...

  New Delhi / AFP From deploying ‘cash coolies’ to buying Rolex watches, Indians have found unique ways to dodge the government’s surprise move to withdraw high value bills in a bid to tackle widespread corruption and tax evasion. Cash Coolies There have been multiple reports of factory owners and businessmen asking staff — or even hiring casual labourers — ...

  Bloomberg Investing in emerging markets will be trickier in 2017, says Goldman Sachs Group Inc. The New York-based bank laid out its expectations for developing nations in a report. Below are some of the highlights. Downside risks have increased after Donald Trump won the U.S presidential election, which means a rally in local-currency bonds so far this year is ...

  Bloomberg Credit Suisse Group AG’s Swiss unit began life as a legally independent company, enabling the bank to pursue plans to sell part of the business in a public offering next year. In carving out a separate entity, Credit Suisse also fulfills a regulatory requirement to make banks easier to break up in a crisis or insolvency. Credit Suisse ...