Banking

  Frankfurt / AFP German insurance heavyweight Allianz announced a bumper third-quarter profit, turning around a slump prompted by higher payouts for natural disasters earlier in the year. The group said it increased net profit to 1.95 billion euros ($2.1 billion) between July and September, an increase of 35 percent year-on-year. Its result outdid the expectations of analysts surveyed by ...

  Bloomberg European banks may reach faster, less costly settlements with the US Department of Justice as a result of Donald Trump’s unexpected triumph in the US presidential election, according to Barclays Plc analysts. “Some Democrat appointments at the DoJ have only a few weeks left before they are replaced,” London-based analysts Mike Harrison and Jeremy Sigee wrote in a ...

  Bloomberg Agricultural Development Bank Ltd. of Ghana may reopen an initial public offering next week, increasing its funding target by half after rejecting bids in a share sale that closed in March. The biggest agricultural lender in the West African country will seek to raise 600 million cedis (about $150 million) should the government, which holds 52 percent, approve ...

  Bloomberg Wells Fargo & Co. climbed for a second straight day, leading US bank stocks higher, as investors bet that a Trump presidency will lead to less regulation, sideline some of the industry’s sharpest critics and lift long-term interest rates. Wells Fargo, which drew bipartisan rebukes from Congress after bank employees opened unauthorized customer accounts, rose 7.8 percent to ...

  Bloomberg Deutsche Bank AG expects mergers and acquisitions to pick up in the Middle East and Africa next year after a ‘subdued’ 2016, according to the head of the company in the region, Jamal Al Kishi. Deals and initial public offerings will add to accelerating debt sales as governments seek to fill budget gaps caused by the oil slump, ...

  New Delhi / AFP Long queues formed outside banks in India on Thursday as they reopened for the first time since the government’s shock decision to withdraw the two largest denomination notes from circulation. Some banks in the capital New Delhi had received the new 2,000 rupee ($30) bill and a number of ATMs were working again, two days ...

  Bloomberg The rupee rose to a two-month high as foreign investors piled into Indian assets and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said the government’s crackdown on unaccounted wealth will boost the nation’s bonds and currency. In India’s most extensive anti-graft operation in almost four decades, Prime Minister Narendra Modi late Tuesday decided to ban 500 rupee ($7.50) and 1,000 rupee ...

  Bloomberg New Zealand’s central bank cut interest rates to a fresh record low and said it has probably done enough to return inflation to target as economic growth quickens. “At this stage we think that we won’t need another cut,” Reserve Bank Governor Graeme Wheeler told a news conference in Wellington on Thursday after lowering the official cash rate ...

  Bloomberg European lenders got a second-day boost after Donald Trump’s presidential win on speculation his term will lead to increased inflation and an easing of financial rules. The leaders of the rally that pushed Europe’s shares up for a fourth day were UBS Group AG and Credit Suisse Group AG, which get more than 35 percent of their revenues ...

  Bloomberg Banks in the UK paid 34.2 billion pounds ($42 billion) in tax in the latest fiscal year, 9 percent more than a year earlier, reflecting an increase in the levy on balance sheets and changes to corporation tax, a report from the British Bankers’ Association showed. Receipts were evenly split between domestic and international lenders, with the former ...