Banking

  Bloomberg The European Union has threatened to go rogue in talks on bank capital rules, and the bloc’s willingness to go its own way could undermine global standards intended to avert a new financial crisis. Top EU policy makers have made clear that sweeping changes are needed before the EU will accept a capital-rule revamp under way at the ...

  Bloomberg Nigeria’s banking industry is experiencing a “full blown financial crisis” as failed fiscal and monetary policies lead to a credit crunch, according to Arqaam Capital. Unity Bank Plc and Skye Bank Plc are close to being insolvent while lenders FBN Holdings Plc and Sterling Bank Plc “will need a dilutive capital hike,” Jaap Meijer and Tarek Sleiman, analysts ...

  Bloomberg Standard Chartered Plc has stepped up its hiring from Barclays Plc’s private-banking team in Hong Kong ahead of the transfer of the business to Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp., in a move that underscores the stiff competition for wealth managers in Asia. More than 10 Barclays relationship managers in Hong Kong are joining Standard Chartered, which is expanding its wealth ...

  Bloomberg Itau Unibanco Holding SA, Latin America’s largest bank by market value, agreed to buy Citigroup Inc.’s retail-banking business in Brazil for 710 million reais ($220 million), taking over operations that the US company has maintained in the country for more than 100 years. The purchase includes Citi’s 71 branches in the South American country as well as its ...

  Bloomberg As the price of oil stays stubbornly low, investors in the Middle East are turning to deals. Mergers and acquisitions activity in the Gulf region is set to accelerate as lower oil prices force governments and corporations to consolidate fragmented industries, according to Bank of America Corp. (BofA) “The drop in oil prices has made people in the ...

  Bloomberg Bank Leumi Le-Israel Ltd. expects to end its five-year dividend drought in early 2017 as it’s “very close” to clearing the main regulatory hurdle standing in its way, Chief Executive Officer Rakefet Russak-Aminoach said. The Bank of Israel requires lenders to meet a Tier 1 capital ratio of 10.25 percent by Jan. 1. The Tier 1 ratio is ...

  Bloomberg Global banking regulators are sticking to their guns on capital standards in the face of intense European pressure to soften planned rule-changes. The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision will wrap up work on the post-crisis capital framework on schedule by the end of the year, William Coen, the regulator’s secretary general, said. Key elements criticized by European Union ...

  Bloomberg ABN Amro Group NV, the state-controlled Dutch lender that returned to the stock market last year, is exploring a sale of its Asia private-banking business, people with knowledge of the matter said. The bank is working with a financial adviser and has reached out to potential buyers to gauge their interest, according to the people. The deliberations are ...

  Bloomberg An HSBC Holdings Plc. executive and a former employee have been barred from the banking industry by the Federal Reserve as they face U.S. criminal charges that they committed fraud in conducting foreign-exchange trades. The Fed’s move follows the August indictments of Mark Johnson, who was HSBC’s head of foreign exchange cash trading, and Stuart Scott, the bank’s ...

  Bloomberg Raiffeisen Bank International AG rose to the highest in about 10 months after announcing that it will go ahead with a plan to merge with its parent to address a capital shortfall at Austria’s biggest group of credit cooperatives. RBI climbed as much as 2.8 percent to 14.39 euros in Vienna, the highest since Dec. 9. The company ...