Banking

  London / Bloomberg Big investment banks with their European headquarters in London will start the process of moving jobs from the UK within weeks of the government triggering Brexit, a faster timeline than their public messages of patience would imply, according to people briefed on the plans being drawn up by four of the biggest firms. Dismayed by the ...

  Melbourne / Bloomberg National Australia Bank (NAB) Ltd.’s third-quarter profit fell 3 percent amid rising expenses for bad debts and provisions for mining and agricultural loans, rounding off the most challenging reporting season for the nation’s lenders in six years. Unaudited cash profit from continuing operations, which excludes one-time items, declined to A$1.6 billion ($1.2 billion) in the three ...

  Tokyo / Bloomberg The Bank of Japan’s controversial march to the top of shareholder rankings in the world’s third-largest equity market is picking up pace. Already a top-five owner of 81 companies in Japan’s Nikkei 225 Stock Average, the BOJ is on course to become the No. 1 shareholder in 55 of those firms by the end of next ...

  LONDON / AP The chief executive of Royal Bank of Scotland says the company will move its headquarters out of Scotland if the country votes for independence. RBS said before Scotland’s 2014 independence referendum that it would leave in the event of independence. CEO Ross McEwan says Britain’s June 23 vote to leave the European Union had not changed ...

  Berlin / AP Germany’s Bundesbank said raising the legal retirement age to 69 by 2060 could ease some of the pressure on the country’s state pension system as the population ages. Recent reforms won’t protect citizens from a drop in the level of pension payments from 2050, the central bank said in its monthly report published on Monday. Citizens ...

  Bloomberg The European Union is considering adding to protections for banks’ riskiest debt securities by requiring that lenders pay coupons on such bonds before stock dividends and staff bonuses. Coupons on additional Tier 1 securities, such as contingent convertibles, or CoCos, “should be given priority” if capital levels are breached that trigger limits on payouts, according to an undated ...

  London / Bloomberg Bank of England (BOE) Governor Mark Carney isn’t finished yet. Economists in a Bloomberg survey predict another interest-rate cut in November, adding to the stimulus unveiled this month, even as they see UK inflation busting through policy makers’ 2 percent target just months later. The survey also puts the probability of Britain sliding into a recession ...

  Hong Kong / Bloomberg Hong Kong’s High Court ruled against Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp.’s (OCBC) private bank in a mis-selling case, saying the unit and a relationship manager had breached their contractual duty towards an elderly couple who lost money on investments made with ING Asia Private Bank. In a court judgment dated Aug. 8, the court said Bank of ...

  Manila / Bloomberg The Philippine central bank approved a significant increase in the amount of foreign exchange that companies and individuals can buy without documentation in what analysts say is a bid to reduce the number of black market currency trades. The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas said in a statement that from September 15, the amount of foreign exchange ...

  Bloomberg Crime writers and Hollywood producers take note: Secret Swiss bank accounts aren’t so secret anymore. Switzerland’s reputation for tight-lipped discretion made it a magnet for money from dictators and tax dodgers, along with the fictional assassin Jason Bourne. Now whistleblowers and a crackdown after the 2008 financial crisis are creating a world less tolerant of offshore havens. That’s ...