Banking

  Bloomberg The European Central Bank might need to change the rules of the game if it wants to keep playing in the bond market. President Mario Draghi’s 1.7 trillion-euro ($1.9 trillion) asset-purchase program is scheduled to end in just six months, but euro-area inflation is still weak and the full shock of the UK’s Brexit vote could be yet ...

  Bloomberg Singapore has increased inspections of banks’ anti-money-laundering and terrorism- financing controls as it steps up enforcement actions against misconduct in the industry, the head of the central bank said. Financial institutions must promote constant vigilance and set the right moral tone, Ravi Menon, managing director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), said at an event hosted by ...

  Bloomberg Turkey’s central bank lowered reserve requirements for banks, the third time since July’s attempted coup that the regulator has acted to boost lira and foreign-exchange liquidity. Lira reserve requirement ratios were lowered by 50 basis points, the bank said in a statement on Tuesday. The bank also lowered the amount of foreign-exchange and gold that lenders must keep ...

  Bloomberg The UK state-backed lenders Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc and Lloyds Banking Group Plc fell in London trading after Deutsche Bank AG analysts cut ratings on their shares on the potential for Brexit to crimp their earnings. RBS fell as much as 3.6 percent after David Lock, an analyst at Deutsche Bank, downgraded the stock to sell ...

  Bloomberg The Bank of Japan’s unprecedented review of its unprecedented monetary policy has stepped up focus on a key group of Governor Haruhiko Kuroda’s allies. A trio of top officials in the Monetary Affairs Department, led by Executive Director Masayoshi Amamiya — referred to by some as BOJ — is leading the initiative, according to people familiar with the ...

  Reuters Bahrain-based Al Baraka Banking Group, one of the Gulf’s top Islamic banks, said its Pakistani unit would merge with Pakistan’s Burj Bank to create an institution with assets totalling more than $1.1 billion. The merger, which was approved by shareholders of the two banks last month and still needs regulatory approvals, would see Burj Bank holders receive one ...

  Bloomberg Standard Chartered Plc will look beyond Angola’s oil and gas industry to pursue growth and remains committed to the southwest African nation even as a plunge in crude prices batters the economy, according to the U.K. lender’s local partner. The bank was “focused on the oil sector but with changes we’re seeing today in the market an adaptation” ...

  Mumbai / AFP India’s outgoing central bank chief Raghuram Rajan warned countries against a rush to low interest rates as his tenure as governor of the Reserve Bank of India came to an end. Rajan, who famously predicted the 2008 global financial crisis, told the New York Times that central banks across the world would find it hard to ...

  Tehran/ AFP Two private Iranian banks will open branches in Munich, officials confirmed on Monday, as the Islamic republic looks for ways around ongoing barriers to international financing. The central bank announced late on Sunday that Middle East Bank and Sina Bank would set up in Germany’s Bavaria state, following a visit by local economy minister Ilse Aigner to ...

  Reuters India’s central bank has proposed working with the government to introduce interest-free banking to tackle financial exclusion for religious reasons, potentially opening Islamic finance to the largest Muslim minority population in the world. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) made the proposal in its annual report last week, as departing central bank governor Raghuram Rajan hands over the ...