Banking

  DUBAI / Reuters The Kingdom of Bahrain is in talks with lenders for an Islamic bond, or sukuk, which is expected to be issued in the first quarter of 2017, banking sources said. No banks have been appointed yet to arrange the debt transaction, the bankers said on condition of anonymity because the information has not been made public. …

  NEW DELHI / AP The first people showed up at the bank long before dawn, forming a line in the cold and the smog and silently waiting for the chance to withdraw their own money. They left more than seven hours later, each holding the handful of bills, worth $60 at the very most, that they’d been allowed to …

  AP India’s government said on Tuesday it will use indelible ink to mark the fingers of people swapping scrapped currency notes at banks as authorities struggle to deal with the bedlam caused by the sudden demonetizing of the country’s highest-denomination bills. India announced a week ago that it was withdrawing 500 and 1,000 rupee notes as legal tender to …

  Bloomberg Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA will offer a voluntary debt-for-equity swap on 4.29 billion euros ($4.6 billion) of subordinated securities as part of its effort to reduce the amount of stock the struggling Italian lender would need to sell in its turnaround plan. The bank is offering shares in exchange for Tier 1 securities and Tier …

  Bloomberg UniCredit SpA, Italy’s biggest bank by market value, climbed in Milan trading after news agency Ansa reported talk of a combination with France’s Societe Generale SA. UniCredit rose as much as 5.8 percent and was up 2.5 percent at 2.35 euros as of 9:57 a.m. Societe Generale was trading 1.4 percent higher at 40.35 euros. The stock has …

  Bloomberg Russia’s biggest bank Sberbank said on Tuesday its net profits had doubled as borrowing in the country picked up after an abrupt halt last year. The country’s most popular consumer bank saw third-quarter net profits soar to 137 billion rubles ($2 billion) — a gain of 110 percent compared to the same period in 2015. The results were …

  Bloomberg French tax authorities are seeking to recover 2.2 billion euros of tax breaks given to Societe Generale following massive losses due to “rogue trader” Jerome Kerviel’s recklessness, Les Echos newspaper said. In September an appeals court in Versailles, west of Paris, decided that the French banking giant was mostly to blame for ex-trader Kerviel losing 4.9 billion euros …

  Nicosia / AFP Bank of Cyprus, the east Mediterranean island’s largest lender, said on Tuesday it would apply for a listing on the London Stock Exchange as part of its restructuring drive. “We are delighted to be applying for a listing on the London Stock Exchange, which marks another significant step in the bank’s transformation,” said BoC chairman Josef …

  Bloomberg India raised the limits on withdrawals and exchange of old banknotes after the government’s surprise move to ban high-denomination bills on November 8 resulted in customers across the country queuing for hours to deposit the old bills. Banks have received 3 trillion rupees ($44.4 billion) in deposits in the first four days, the finance ministry said in a …

  Bloomberg Australia should follow India’s lead and scrap its biggest bank notes, UBS Group AG said. “Removing large denomination notes in Australia would be good for the economy and good for the banks,” UBS analysts led by Jonathan Mott said in a note to clients on Monday. Benefits would include reduced crime and welfare fraud, increased tax revenue and …