Banking

  Bloomberg Bahrain Islamic Bank BSC (BISB) is seeking to sell about 82 million dinars ($218 million) of unproductive assets such as land and shares as part of a five-year plan to boost growth. The lender sold 14 million dinars-worth of these assets in the first half and plans the sale of a similar amount in the remainder of the ...

  Bloomberg European Central Bank (ECB) Executive Board member Benoit Coeure said unconventional monetary policy may have to be used differently and more frequently if governments don’t act to boost the growth potential of euro-area economies. “We may see short-term rates being pushed to the effective lower bound more frequently in the event of macroeconomic shocks,” Coeure said Saturday in ...

  Bloomberg Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda said he won’t hesitate to boost monetary stimulus if needed, reiterating a pledge during an annual policy retreat in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, at which central bankers stressed their need for backup from fiscal policy. “There is no doubt that there is ample space for additional easing in each of the three dimensions,” ...

  Bloomberg Postal Savings Bank of China Co., moving closer to the world’s biggest share sale this year, won Hong Kong stock exchange approval for an initial public offering that could raise about $8 billion, people with knowledge of the matter said. The Beijing-based bank plans to start gauging investor demand for the offering in the first half of September, ...

  Bloomberg Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta is borrowing a page from Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a quest to boost his popularity before elections next year by picking a fight with his country’s banks. Both leaders had for years been trying to lower borrowing costs. Erdogan succeeded earlier this month when he announced that he would view as an act ...

Riga /AFP Two Scandinavian banks, Nordea and DNB, announced on Thursday they will merge operations in Baltic eurozone members Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Their new bank will be the second-largest financial institution in the region behind market-leader Swedbank, with assets worth 13 billion euros ($14.6 billion) and more than 3,000 employees. “Nordea and DNB have entered into an agreement to ...

  Bloomberg Shares of Kenya’s biggest banks plunged after President Uhuru Kenyatta signed a law that caps the interest rates lenders can charge on loans and set minimum payments on deposits. KCB Group Ltd., the nation’s largest bank by assets, led the slump to head for the steepest decline in 13 years after Kenyatta signed the law saying he sympathized ...

  Bloomberg Malayan Banking Bhd. posted a third straight decline in quarterly profit as the biggest Malaysian lender more than tripled allowances for loan impairments. Net income fell to 1.16 billion ringgit ($288 million) in the three months through June from 1.58 billion ringgit a year earlier, the Kuala Lumpur-based company said in a stock exchange filing on Thursday. Revenue ...

  Lisbon /AFP The European Commission and Portugal said they have agreed on a 5-billion-euro deal to recapitalise the state-owned Caixa Geral de Depositos (CGD) bank, including through a 2.7-billion-euro injection of state funds. The deal was provisionally approved by European Union competition chief Margrethe Vestager to meet the 28-nation bloc’s tough rules on preventing unfair government aid for businesses. ...

  Bloomberg China’s central bank watchers have something new to puzzle over. The People’s Bank of China sold 50 billion yuan ($7.5 billion) of 14-day reverse-repurchase agreements on Wednesday, its first offering of anything with a tenor other than seven days since February. Officials are signaling they’re ready to curb leverage in the bond market by making it less profitable ...