Banking

  Bloomberg China’s campaign to crack down on illegal capital outflows saw its currency regulator bust underground banking operations that involved more than 1 trillion yuan ($148 billion), according to a newspaper published by the country’s central bank. The State Administration of Foreign Exchange also seized $8.43 billion in foreign exchange funds as part of the nationwide checks on illegal ...

  Bloomberg California prosecutors are investigating whether Wells Fargo & Co. bankers committed criminal identity theft by creating millions of fraudulent accounts. Attorney General Kamala Harris served a search warrant on the bank seeking the names of employees who opened unauthorized accounts from May 2011 to July 2015. The warrant, provided by Harris, also demands detailed communications, the bank’s fee ...

  Bloomberg The Nordic region’s biggest foreign-currency trading bank told investors it has finished building capital buffers for now as shareholders look for clues as to how Sweden’s banks might treat excess cash. Annika Falkengren, the chief executive officer of SEB AB, said the 170 basis-point buffer the bank holds on top of the requirement set by Sweden’s regulator is ...

  Bloomberg A rewards war that’s helped U.S. credit-card customers amass points for perks or cash proved costly in the latest quarter for some of the nation’s biggest banks. That may signal fresh pain at American Express Co. Issuers have sweetened rewards, cut fees and sought to improve services to lure customers, making it tougher to grow profits. In the ...

  Bloomberg Standard Chartered Plc can finally start to move beyond its woes in India. The London-based lender is set to receive a $2.1 billion repayment in the next few weeks from Essar Global, the steel-to-power conglomerate that’s been one of its most problematic borrowers in the country, people with knowledge of the matter said. Standard Chartered may be able ...

  Bloomberg Banks should be given three to five years until new accounting rules for loan losses have an impact on regulatory capital, according to the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision. Accounting standards that require banks to set aside money for expected bad-loan losses will enter into force in 2018 in most of the world, and in 2020 in the ...

  Dubai / Reuters Commercial Bank of Qatar (CBQ) swung to a third-quarter net loss, it reported late on Tuesday, as the Gulf Arab state’s third-largest lender by assets was forced to set aside more cash to cover bad loans. The results, the first since the appointment of former Australia and New Zealand Banking Group banker Joseph Abraham as chief ...

  Bloomberg The Bank of Uganda lowered its benchmark interest rate by 100 basis points to 13 percent, saying slowing inflation gave it room to support flagging growth. Two of three analysts surveyed by Bloomberg predicted the reduction, while one expected policy makers to keep the benchmark rate at 14 percent. The monetary policy committee has cut the rate by ...

  Dubai / AFP A modest recovery in oil prices falls short of filling budgetary gaps in crude-exporting Gulf countries, the International Monetary Fund said, stressing the need to cut spending. The price of the region’s main commodity has partially rebounded and is hovering around $50 per barrel having hit a 10-year low of less than $30 in January, from ...

  Shanghai / Agencies China’s two-week money-market rate climbed the most in almost two years as the central bank drained funds from the financial system and a weakening yuan reduced the possibility of monetary easing. The 14-day repurchase rate, a gauge of interbank funding availability, surged 52 basis points, the most since December 2014, to a two-week high of 3.03 ...