Banking

  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 ...

  AFP Russia’s largest lender Sberbank on Thursday announced it almost tripled its profits in the second quarter and predicted further stabilisation of the economy this year despite credit growth slowing. The majority state-controlled bank made a net profit of 145.4 billion rubles ($2.23 billion, 1.98 billion euros) in the second quarter, up 166.3 percent on the same period last ...

  Bloomberg China’s central bank injected cash into the financial system using 14-day reverse-repurchase agreements for the first time since February amid speculation policy makers are looking to increase the use of more expensive, longer-term funding to cool a bond rally. The People’s Bank of China auctioned 50 billion yuan ($7.5 billion) of the contracts in open-market operations at 2.4 ...

  Bloomberg Royal Bank of Canada beat analysts’ profit estimates as the City National purchase in the U.S. bolstered wealth management and capital markets earnings surged. Canada’s biggest bank raised its dividend 2.5 percent to 83 cents a share. Profit for the quarter ended July 31 climbed 7.5 percent to $2.06 billion, or C$1.72 a share after excluding gains from ...

  AFP The Central Bank of Iceland on Wednesday cut its benchmark interest rate by half a percentage point to 5.25 percent, saying inflation remained low despite rising wages and strong growth. “Inflation has remained below target for two-and-a-half years. In July it measured 1.1 percent, the lowest inflation rate since the beginning of 2015,” the bank said. “The krona ...