Banking

  Bloomberg GIC Pte reached a preliminary agreement to pay less than $400 million for a 7.7 percent stake in Bank for Foreign Trade of Vietnam JSC, the nation’s second-biggest listed company, people with knowledge of the matter said. The Singapore sovereign fund will buy Vietcombank stock at a discount to the current market price, the people said, asking not ...

  Bloomberg Mondo, a financial startup vying to crack the dominance of Britain’s biggest lenders, said it changed its name by one letter to Monzo after a legal dispute. The smartphone-based lender started by former GoCardless Ltd. founder Tom Blomfield picked the name after considering 12,560 suggestions from customers over six months, the London-based firm said in a statement. The ...

  Bloomberg Maj Invest, a Danish asset manager with $8 billion in assets, is looking to boost acquisitions in the micro finance industry in the Andean region. The Copenhagen-based asset manager is in the process of raising capital to grow the size of its Maj Invest Financial Inclusion Fund II to $100 million by June from $75 million now, according ...

  Bloomberg Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen’s speech on Friday was hawkish enough for Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to boost the odds of a September interest-rate increase, while Pacific Investment Management Co. said there was nothing of note in her remarks. Bond traders agree with Goldman Sachs, with the market-implied probability of action next month rising after Yellen said in ...

  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 ...