Banking

Goldman Sachs fined $36mn over leaked docs

  Washington / Bloomberg Goldman Sachs Group Inc. agreed to pay $36.3 million over allegations that former employees obtained confidential documents from the Federal Reserve in a settlement that requires the bank to beef up its policies to prevent another lapse. The Fed is also pursuing a $337,500 fine and a permanent banking ban against a former Goldman Sachs managing ...

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KCB first-half profit rises 14 percent

  Nairobi / Bloomberg KCB Group Ltd., Kenya’s biggest bank by assets, boosted first-half profit by 14 percent as earnings from lending increased and after setting aside less money for credit-related losses. Net income in the six months through June rose to 10.5 billion shillings ($103.6 million) compared with 9.2 billion shillings a year earlier, the Nairobi-based lender said in ...

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TIAA may acquire EverBank for $2.5bn

  Bloomberg TIAA is in talks to buy EverBank Financial Corp., the largest Florida-based lender by deposits, for about $2.5 billion as it seeks to expand in internet banking, according to Reuters. The deal would add to TIAA’s wealth-management business and give the financial-services firm, led by former Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Roger Ferguson, a platform for providing personal and ...

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Australia cracks down on banks with annual grilling

  Sydney / AFP Australia’s largest banks will have to face a parliamentary committee for an annual grilling to “drive cultural change”, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said on Thursday as he addressed public disquiet about their behaviour. The country’s “big four” lenders — among the developed world’s most profitable — have been under scrutiny in recent years amid allegations of ...

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HSBC profits plunge as Brexit uncertainty bites

  Hong Kong / AFP HSBC said on Wednesday net profit plunged in April-June and that the bank was heading into “a period of heightened uncertainty” after Britain voted to leave the European Union. Profit after tax sank 40 percent on-year to $2.61 billion, the firm said in a statement, but assured it had weathered the Brexit storm “securely”. The firm ...

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Societe Generale Q2 earnings rise 8.1%

  Paris / AFP French bank Societe Generale said on Wednesday its second-quarter earnings rose 8.1 percent from a year earlier, bolstered by the sale of its shares in Visa Europe. The bank reported a 1.5 billion euro ($1.7 billion) net profit for the period, higher than the 1.4 billion euros predicted by economists in a survey by FactSet. Selling its ...

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BoE set to axe rates to record low 0.25%

  London / AFP The Bank of England (BoE) is expected to slash interest rates to a record-low 0.25 percent this week and could pump more stimulus into the economy as it battles the fallout from Britain’s vote to leave the EU, economists say. The announcement, due Thursday after the British central bank’s latest monetary policy meeting, would take rates to their ...

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Kenya bank profits drop first time in 16 years

  Nairobi / AFP Kenya’s banking industry last year recorded the first decline in profit since 1999 as costs outpaced income in the wake of two failures and more onerous regulations. Pretax profit across the sector declined 5 percent to 134 billion shillings ($1.3 billion) in the 12 months through December, according to the central bank’s Bank Supervision Report, released in ...

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Dutch bank ING boosts operating profit by a quarter

  The Hague / AFP Dutch bank ING, the country’s biggest lender, said on Wednesday that its second-quarter operating profits rose by more than a quarter as it boosted lending. Underlying net profit, which strips out one-off items, rose by 26.7 percent to 1.4 billion euros ($1.6 billion). Net profit more than quadrupled to 1.3 billion euros, but the huge increase ...

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UK banks face $2 billion in extra PPI costs after delay

  London / Bloomberg Three of the UK’s biggest banks face extra charges of about 1.5 billion pounds ($2 billion) after the Financial Conduct Authority said it will probably delay a deadline on payment protection insurance complaints by a year, according to Citigroup Inc. Lloyds Banking Group Plc may have to set aside an additional 750 million pounds to cover ...

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