Banking

Swedbank beats estimates as Q3 profit jumps 23 percent

  Bloomberg Swedbank AB’s profit jumped 23 percent in the third quarter, exceeding analysts’ expectations, as Sweden’s biggest mortgage lender generated more revenue while keeping impairments in check. Net income in the three months through September reached 4.82 billion kronor ($541 million), compared with 3.93 billion kronor a year earlier, the Stockholm-based bank said on Tuesday. That was well above ...

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Troubled Italian bank to cut 2,600 jobs, close branches

  MILAN / AP Troubled Italian bank Monte dei Paschi di Siena unveiled on Tuesday a restructuring plan that will include new management, thousands of job cuts, hundreds of branch closings and the disposal of soured loans in a bid to entice investors to inject up to 5 billion euros ($5.5 billion) in new capital. CEO Marco Morelli said the ...

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BOE optimism wilts in long-term debt as Brexit sparks rout

  Bloomberg Long-term sterling bonds suggest investors are quickly losing confidence in the Bank of England’s (BOE) ability to support debt markets through the UK’s departure from the European Union. Holders have lost about 10 percent in as little as seven weeks on long-dated notes issued by Vodafone Group Plc, British American Tobacco Plc and WPP Plc. The bond sales ...

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Investcorp to acquire 3i’s $271mn debt mgmt arm

  Bloomberg Bahrain-based alternative investor Investcorp Bank BSC agreed to buy the debt management arm of 3i Group Plc, more than doubling its assets under management. Investcorp has agreed to pay $271 million for the business, the company said in a statement on Tuesday. The 3i unit will add $12 billion to the firm’s assets under management, bringing Investcorp’s total ...

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TD Ameritrade, Toronto-Dominion buy Scottrade for $4bn

  Bloomberg TD Ameritrade Holding Corp. and its largest stakeholder, Toronto-Dominion Bank, agreed to buy Scottrade Financial Services Inc. for $4 billion, combining two of the largest online brokerages while expanding the U.S. operations of Canada’s second-largest lender. TD Ameritrade agreed to acquire Scottrade’s brokerage operations for about $2.7 billion. Toronto-Dominion, which owns about 42 percent of TD Ameritrade, will ...

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Banks may take excessive risks to stay profitable, warns BOJ

  Bloomberg The Bank of Japan (BOJ) expressed concern that some banks may take excessive risks to maintain profitability while the ability of others to lend could weaken following the introduction of its negative interest-rate policy. Banks are less able to make up for declining profitability of domestic lending because the areas that had supported earnings, such as low bad-loan ...

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China rate swaps rise to 6-month high

  Bloomberg China’s money market is showing increasing signs of a shortage of cash, with interest-rate swaps climbing to a six-month high and banks paying higher interest to obtain government funds. The cost of one-year swaps rose as much as four basis points to 2.67 percent in Shanghai, the most expensive since April 29, while the benchmark seven-day repurchase rate ...

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19 US financial firms to create real-time payments network

  Bloomberg Nineteen US financial firms — including titans such as JPMorgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp. and Wells Fargo & Co. as well as regional lenders and credit unions — have signed up for a new real-time payments network dubbed Zelle. The venture, replacing an existing system called clearXchange next year, will be accessible to more than ...

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European Union to soften blow of regulations on ailing banks

  Bloomberg The European Union is preparing a rewrite of international capital requirements as part of a growing effort to soften the blow of regulations on struggling banks. The European Commission will announce a sweeping plan as early as next month for enacting global standards including a requirement for lenders to have more stable funding to weather a future crisis. ...

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Nordea-ABN Amro could have created ‘great bank’

  Bloomberg Bjorn Wahlroos, the chairman of Nordea Bank AB, confirmed he approached Dutch authorities about a possible merger with ABN Amro Group NV. While those talks didn’t lead to a combination of the two lenders, the Nordea chairman said a merger could have produced a “great bank,” during an interview with Finnish state broadcaster YLE. “It was in preliminary ...

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